Legislation and cybersecurity

PCWorld.com: Cybersecurity: A Job for the Feds?

This is an intriguing article. The Gartner group is one of the best known IT research groups, referred to as an IT think tank (with the appropriate policy connotations) by a former boss of mine. According to PCWorld, at their IT Security Summit in DC on Monday, there was an argument over the degree to which the government should be involved in promoting cybersecurity.

In this as with many other technical issues, the market has been left to find its own solutions, because the government is far too slow and deliberate to keep up with the everchanging technology industry. But there are real national security concerns here that are not necessarily being sufficiently protected.

I don't know enough about the options Congress has for getting involved in this, so I won't say too much. I do want to point out one portion of the article that is worth considering:

[Former White House counterterrorism expert Roger] Cressey predicted national legislation will follow a major cyber outage, and Congress will then legislate with "a hammer instead of a scalpel."

"If we ever truly have a major cyber event ... then you're going to see Congress legislate," Cressey said. "They will legislate because of a public outcry. It will be bad legislation."