The New Policy World of Cybersecurity

Governance institutions in the United States have recognized the essential importance of cybersecurity to the economic, social, and political activities and conditions that define our modern way of life. Securing information stored on the internet and protecting telecommunications from intrusion is the difficult task the government faces. Recent presidential administrations have approached the issue in various ways, creating a platform to expand upon for future policy. For example under Bush in 2003, the administration issued the National Strategy for Securing Cyberspace (NSSC). This was expanded upon by the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) in 2008. Under Obama the Cyberspace Policy Review took on a more top-down orientation than before, but it has not yet produced the intended results. Thus current cybersecurity measures are still insufficient as they are narrow in scope and incrementally implemented, but are a starting point from which to build an effective and comprehensive policy.