US President Barack Obama asked US executives on Friday for closer cooperation in defending against hackers after high-profile attacks on companies like Sony Corp that exposed weaknesses in the US’ cyberdefenses.
Speaking at Stanford University, Obama told Silicon Valley and financial services CEOs that they needed to share more information more quickly, both with each other and with his administration.
“Government cannot do this alone. But the fact is that the private sector can’t do it alone either because it’s government that often has the latest information on new threats,” he told a gathering of CEOs.
Photo: Reuters
Obama has moved cybersecurity toward the top of his agenda for this year after the recent breaches, but senior figures from the tech world who are at odds with the administration over government surveillance stayed away from his speech.
The Sony attack was particularly worrying for US officials. Obama, in an interview with tech news Web site Re/code, said the Sony attack was especially worrisome because “it’s not as if North Korea is particularly good as this.” The president added that China and Russia are “very good” and Iran is “good” at cyberattacks.
On Friday, Obama met privately with a small group of business leaders in Silicon Valley to try to mend fences with tech companies still smarting over damage to their businesses when government surveillance practices were exposed by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Upset about the lack of reforms to surveillance programs, the CEOs of Google Inc, Facebook Inc and Yahoo Inc stayed away from Friday’s conference.
Apple Inc chief executive Tim Cook gave an address and CEOs from PayPal Inc, Intel Corp, Visa Inc and other financial services companies attended.
Cook warned about unspecified threats to privacy.
“We still live in a world where not all people are treated equally. Too many people are not free to practice their religion or speak their mind or love who they choose,” Cook said. “If those of us in positions of responsibility fail to do everything in our power to protect the right to privacy, we risk far more than money ... we risk our way of life.”
American Express Co CEO Kenneth Chenault said that there was ample room for improving cooperation against hacking.
Though the card issuer scans constantly for threats, Chenault said only 5 percent of the cases the company finds are already the subject of warnings from other members in the financial sector’s well-regarded Information Sharing and Analysis Center. Only 1 percent of the threats has already been flagged by the federal government.
While at Stanford, Obama signed an executive order aimed at making that happen by promoting hubs where companies can share information with each other and with the US Department of Homeland Security.
If e-mails hit employees at one company with a link to a Web site loaded with code that can give hackers access to the network, that company should feel free to warn its competitors without worrying about antitrust or privacy rules, the White House argues.
The administration would like to automate the process as much as possible, so that machines would be informed what malicious Web sites or e-mail addresses to block within minutes.
“The information we want to be moving is the information on things that actually indicate malicious activity. And so that’s malware indicators, that’s indicators of compromise, that’s bad IP addresses,” White House cybersecurity coordinator Michael Daniel told reporters.
Obama’s executive order is one step in a long effort to make companies, as well as privacy and consumer advocates, more comfortable with proposed legislation that would offer firms protection from being sued for handing over customer information to the government.
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