14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this year, United States President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order designed to enhance the protection capabilities of the country’s critical infrastructure. Currently, the government is working with critical infrastructure owners and operators to create a Cybersecurity Framework.
The Cybersecurity Framework, which contains a set of core practices meant to develop capabilities to manage cybersecurity risks, is expected to be released in February 2014.
After the Framework is officially released, the White House plans on launching a Voluntary Program that will help encourage critical infrastructure organizations to adopt it.
In a blog post published on Tuesday, the White House revealed that the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Commerce and the Department of Treasury had each proposed a series of incentives for companies to join the Voluntary Program.
“Over the next few months, agencies will examine these options in detail to determine which ones to adopt and how, based substantially on input from critical infrastructure stakeholders,” Michael Daniel, special assistant to the president and cybersecurity coordinator, noted.
“We believe that sharing the findings and our plans for continued work will promote transparency and sustain a public conversation about the recommendations.”
The incentive areas include cybersecurity insurance, grants, process preference, liability limitation, streamline regulations, public recognition, rate recovery for price regulated industries, and cybersecurity research.
The process preference area refers to expanding existing government service delivery to Voluntary Program participants. For instance, critical infrastructure organizations would be provided with technical assistance outside of incident response situations.
The White House notes that some of these incentives can be put in place in a fairly short amount of time after the Voluntary Program is launched. On the other hand, others require legislative action and additional maturation of both the Framework and the Program.
“We are currently working with the appropriate agencies to prioritize each incentive area and move forward,” Daniel said.