Cybersecurity National Action Plan Unveiled by Obama

The Cybersecurity National Action Plan [CNAP] of the White House was unveiled recently in order to fortify the defense system and safeguard the government agencies, companies and American citizens against cyber attacks. President Obama requested Congress to boost the spending on cyber security to $19 billion for the year 2017. This amounts to an increase in the budget by 35% in comparison to previous years.

The White House intends to launch an Information Technology Modernization Fund for $3.1 billion in order to replace all the outdated systems being utilized by the federal government. President Obama has invited a federal chief information officer in order to oversee the initiatives of the fund and also to coordinate with the cyber security practices being followed across several agencies.

The main agenda of the security action plan is to foil the efforts of the hackers and the groups that are exploiting the innocent. During October, a new organization was set up referred to as the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental [DIUx] in California. The unit intends to make use of potentially useful technologies for offering top notch cyber security.  The primary function of the unit is to act as a matchmaker and offering a direction to the companies that may aid in solving the technology issues. It intends to connect the technology solutions and the military problems so that the security personnel can make effective use of the solutions.

The Pentagon intends to put forward all the military problems in front of engineers and coders and derive the best solutions for them with the aid of latest technology. Silicon Valley houses the best engineering and programming talent in the world. Connecting public and private sector seems to be bit complicated but isn’t impossible. Pentagon spends decades on developing submarines, fighter jets, military hardware and more. This doesn’t match with the pace of the Silicon Valley’s hunger for launching new products quickly and getting quick return on investment. This collaboration of public and private sector isn’t really a business agenda.

Defense sector is a very small market. From the perception of Silicon Valley, the money that can be made from this sector is really less. However, Pentagon is still making a move and pushing the project to incorporate the best of the technology solutions to make the entire process much more flexible for the military personnel. The Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter gave a push to this new bond by ending up in Silicon Valley. He delivered a lecture at the Stanford University and spoke about cyber security and cyber warfare bearing the potential to reshape the warfare for defense purposes.

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