At One-Year Anniversary of White House Cyberspace Policy Review, What’s Next for Our Nation?

Saturday, May 29, marks the one-year anniversary of President Obama’s Cyberspace Policy Review and his major address on cybersecurity, the first ever by a head of state. The address and the accompanying report did a great deal to pave the way for the government, the public and private sectors to work together to make the U.S a more cyber-secure nation. While tremendous progress has been made in the last year, much work remains. If you haven’t seen the video of the President’s remarks, you should. He lays out the critical importance of cybersecurity to our nation’s economic and national security with a forward-looking vision of what we need accomplish.

The Cyberspace Policy Review had three pillars extermely important to NCSA: education, public awareness and public-private partnerships.

o On the education front, Obama called for a national K-12 program focused on cybersafety, security and ethics – one that would ensure all K-12 students received instruction on how to navigate the complexities of the digital world and prepare them for the 21st century workforce. 

o With regards to the broader public, the White House acknowledged the vast challenges of keeping citizens safe and secure online. They proposed a national public awareness campaign similar to Smokey Bear and Click It or Ticket that would raise knowledge and motivate the general public to adopt good cybersafety practices.

o Importantly, the White House also emphasized the role of public-private partnerships in cybersecurity recognizing that no one actor, one sector or one government entity can succeed at managing the complexities of the cyber landscape. Keeping the public safe and secure online, fortifying our critical infrastructure, and building our next generation of digital assets is a shared responsibility.

Onward and Upward

At the one-year mark, where do we go from here?  How do we collectively adopt the spirit of Obama’s speech and the White House report to put these recommendations into action? 

It’s time for us to roll up our sleeves and focus on the most urgent needs, and education has never been more pressing.  Despite the White House recommendation, today fewer than 10 states have implemented cybersecurity curriculum in their school systems (see NCSA's recent Op-Ed in education week on K-12 education).

Educating our children on the fundamentals of cybersafety, security and ethics is one of our most urgent national priorities. In an era, where children will spend the majority of their waking hours interacting with the digital environment – from mobile phones to social networking sites to online video games – it is crucial that they know the risks so they can enjoy the freedoms the online world affords.

Moving forward, the NCSA urges the nation’s schools to put the president’s plan into action and develop a comprehensive cybereducation curriculum that includes professional development for teachers. 

Already, more than 97 percent of teachers, school administrators and technology coordinators agree that cybereducation should be part of a required K-12 curriculum, found a recent Zogby International survey conducted for the NCSA and supported by Microsoft. 

However, despite widespread consensus, the same survey found that 40 percent of teachers had not taught subjects related to cybersecurity and cybersafety and a third had not taught cyberethics in the past year.

On the education and awareness front, in the next few months, NCSA along with its partner the Anti-Phishing Working Group  will announce the results of an effort to bring together the U.S. government, the private sector, and nonprofits to harmonize messaging around what every American can do to stay safe and secure online. This shared message will be issued across a vast array of media. In addition, we encourage everyone to “share the responsibility” for cybersecurity and help us make National Cyber Security Awareness Month this October bigger and better than ever.

This effort along with NCSA’s other core activities are always based on recognizing the key underlying assumption for success – that only by working together can we make the nation more cyber secure.

We applaud President Obama’s vision and commitment to cybersecurity and look forward to doing what ever we can to help carry the torch onward and upward.

SSO ( stay safe online),

Michael