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Cyber Risks · Cisco Talos

National Cyber-Security Emergency and Phenomenal Cosmic Power or Lieberman -- EARN IT

Summary: Cisco Talos reviewed the 199-page Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010, introduced by Senator Lieberman with Senators Collins and Carper, which would create an Office of Cyberspace Policy in the Executive Office of the President and a National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications at DHS. The article focuses on Section 249, which lets DHS take any emergency measures it deems necessary to critical infrastructure once the President declares a cyber emergency, and on language giving the Director "sole, unreviewable discretion" over national information infrastructure.

What's compelling: The bill hands the executive branch sweeping control over privately held critical infrastructure during a declared cyber emergency, and the author notes that the private sector runs 80% of U.S. critical infrastructure and has long struggled to get actionable threat information out of government. The author's objection is that DOE and FERC never used existing authority to mandate basic practices such as keeping the power grid off the Internet, so the case for emergency powers rests on agencies that have already failed to act.

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Topics
Malware
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