Trump Signs Executive Order On Cybersecurity (techcrunch.com)

President Trump on Thursday signed a long-delayed executive order on cybersecurity that "makes clear that agency heads will be held accountable for protecting their networks, and calls on government and industry to reduce the threat from automated attacks on the internet," reports The Washington Post. From the report: Picking up on themes advanced by the Obama administration, Trump's order also requires agency heads to use Commerce Department guidelines to manage risk to their systems. It commissions reports to assess the country's ability to withstand an attack on the electric grid and to spell out the strategic options for deterring adversaries in cyberspace. [Thomas Bossert, Trump's homeland security adviser] said the order was not, however, prompted by Russia's targeting of electoral systems last year. In fact, the order is silent on addressing the security of electoral systems or cyber-enabled operations to influence elections, which became a significant area of concern during last year's presidential campaign. The Department of Homeland Security in January declared election systems "critical infrastructure." The executive order also does not address offensive cyber operations, which are generally classified. This is an area in which the Trump administration is expected to be more forward-leaning than its predecessor. Nor does it spell out what type of cyberattack would constitute an "act of war" or what response the attack would invite. "We're not going to draw a red line," Bossert said, adding that the White House does not "want to telegraph our punches." The order places the defense secretary and the head of the intelligence community in charge of protecting "national security" systems that operate classified and military networks. But the secretary of homeland security will continue to be at the center of the national plan for protecting critical infrastructure, such as the electric grid and financial sector.

Comments

Distracted yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Handy timing, obvious to distract from Comey's sacking, the subpoena, etc.

But can I point out just one of the more obscure stuff recent you may have missed?

Kushner corp trying to raise $150 million from Chinese investors for a 15% stake in some project that magically costs $1 billion, 1 Journal Square:
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/06/news/jared-kushner-nicole-family-event/index.html

Except it doesn't cost $1 billion, the land cost $27 million, and $1 billion would put it in the top 10 most expensive skyscrapers, for a basic 79 story tower.

Why do billionaires not have enough equity or cash to fund this $150 million? Why expensive investors from china?... Because their projects are all in negative equity and they need to keep finding more investors to keep the company going.

This is how Kusher and Trump corp both work: They do a project, perhaps it costs $300 million. They borrow from the banks, who take the documents as collatoral, and lend a portion of the money , e.g. $200m. Outside investors are told the project costs e.g. $600 million, and $150 million/25% is up for sale to them. In reality their $150 million is buying $25 million of equity, but they don't know the full picture because the details are kept secret.

Money is scraped off the deal, in licensing fees, management fees etc. This is the profit for Kushers and Trumps, it's what keep their company going, and lets them pay the interest on their portion of bank loans.

Their property empire requires a constant stream of new investors buying into a false valuation of a project. Threats of lawsuits keep dissent down, and the books are kept secret so nobody can see. This is why the press was barred from the Kushner China investor meeting, because you don't want anyone connecting the dots.

Re:Distracted yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Distracted? By your conspiracy theories or slashdot's daily bullshit?

But seriously,

"Their property empire requires a constant stream of new investors buying into a false valuation of a project. Threats of lawsuits keep dissent down, and the books are kept secret so nobody can see."

THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT TECH BUSINESSES DO.

Re:What does held accountable mean?

[TheOuterLinux]

What this means is Trump and supporters will ultimately have the power to decide who will be held accountable and who will not, influencing industry because these "cyber attacks" are only going to get worse and more selective if you know what I'm saying. He is at heart a business man after all.

The Property makes it legal

[rsilvergun]

because it's overvalued. As an investor if I misjudge the value of a property that's on me. There's all sorts of laws & rules about stating the value of a property and on paper Trump & Co follow those rules. That's what they're good at, running legal ponzi schemes. Similar to the crap Bane & Mitt Romney used to do. That's really what high end biz schools are for. They teach the very rich how to rob us all blind and get away with it.

Nice try

[LeftCoastThinker]

"Picking up on themes advanced by the Obama administration"

Yeah no, but nice try. The Obama administration has the worst cyber security record of any administration, especially when you consider both public and private hacks where the government should have stepped in (i.e. hacks by other countries against US companies or government contractors). Remember the Chinese OPM hack? Yah, that was under Obamas watch. 21 million plus personal records exposed. Remember when the Chinese hacked and stole plans for stealth drones and other military aircraft? That was Obama too. Remember the DNC hacks? Yah, that was on Obamas watch as well (sorry, Trump wasn't even elected yet). There is a list as long as my arm proving that the Obama administration was absolute shit at cyber security and he basically just shrugged and did nothing besides blabber.

It remains to be seen if Trump can get the federal government IT and contractors to get their shit together on this issue, but dont piss down my back and say it is raining. If he starts firing department heads or charging federal employees with criminal negligence where appropriate, we might see the epidemic of hacking fall off somewhat as industry standard measures get adopted and enforced across the federal government.

Re:Nice try

[ausekilis]

Yes, the government has a shit record for cybersecurity, but putting the blame squarely on Obama isn't really fair. Hindsight is always 20/20 and computer security has always been much more reactive than proactive. I'd argue the blame is Congress, the environment, and the government structure.

1) Congress controls the purse and laws. They're the ones that make sure all agencies have the funding to do what they need to do. These asshats in the big white daycare on capital hill haven't managed to agree on a budget before October in over a decade. That means most agencies get a fraction of the money they plan for.

2) The internet has changed in the past 10 years (as of 2012). We've gone from the beginnings of broadband to gigabit connections. From a millions users to billions.

3) The Fed as a whole is woefully slow to move on to new technology. They typically move to a new OS after it has been out for at least 3 years, which means they may get around to Windows 10 sometime in 2018 or 2019. Even those "best of the best" agencies are subject to this. I helped a migration to Windows 7 2.5 years ago, after it had been in the wild for 5 years.

Could these things have been changed by Obama? Not hardly. It would have been tricky even if Congress was willing to work with him. With a Congress too busy fighting with itself to make any progress about anything? Damned near impossible.

Re:What do you mean?

[sudon't]

I'm always a little amazed at the people who find the Clinton's use of their influence, to get money for a charity that does actual charity, more appalling than Trump's phony charity, which only benefits Trump. Is it really so awful to strong-arm rich people into giving money to do good work? Or are you simply blind to, or ignorant of, the illegal shenanigans of the Trump Foundation?