State Of The Union: Cyber Security
In the ritual State Of The Union address, the major concern and issue of cyber security, which was discussed, stemmed from the prevalent massive cyber attacks that took place in 2014, including the data breaches involving JP Morgan Chase, Sony Pictures, and The Home Depot. President Obama spoke about the cyber security effort for 2015, saying, “No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, steal our trade secrets, or invade the privacy of American families, especially our kids … Tonight, I urge this Congress to finally pass the legislation we need to better meet the evolving threat of cyber attacks, combat identity theft, and protect our children’s information. That should be a bipartisan effort.”
The cyber security legislation would theoretically help monitor and reduce the number of data breaches in 2015.
The first piece of cyber security legislation that has been presented is a Cybersecurity Sharing Information Legislation, which states that private entities and government entities could directly disclose information about any cyber threats to one another, using what would be called a “cyber threat indicator.” These indicators would consist of a pre-determined set of qualifications that could be analyzed and shared with the Department of Homeland Security National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center.
The second piece of legislation deals with pre-empting existing data breach laws with a single Federal law. But a healthcare privacy and security lawyer, Kirk Nahra, whom has seen the proposed legislation, says that it “would not change the status quo for healthcare ‘covered entities’ under HIPAA.”
President Obama also proposed a reinforced investigation and prosecution process for cyber-criminals, as well as a federal mandate that would force companies who have been breached to disclose the hack and the severity of the hack to their customers within the first 30 days of finding the breach.
The rise of cyber attacks on American companies and individuals has drawn the attention of the government, and now it seems that cyber security will receive somewhat of an overhaul (or face-lift) to help prevent future attacks. The bolstered cyber defense and government aid / cooperation on the matter makes 2015 another important year for cyber security … And one that we hope is much improved from last year.
REFERENCES:
Conn, Joseph. (January 20 2015). What Obama’s SOTU Mention Of Cyber Threats Means For Healthcare. ModernHealthCare.com. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
Pepitone, Julianne. (January 21 2015). SOTU: Will Obama’s Cybersecurity Proposals Actually Protect You? NBCNews.com. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
Written by Samuel Lang
Content Manager – NeoCertified
