PLI Hears NTIA Readying Botnet Report as Cyber Experts Urge Multistakeholder Approach

NTIA is developing policy recommendation to fight the rise in botnets, to be presented in a report to be delivered to the president in January, Evelyn Remaley, deputy associate administrator, said on a Practising Law Institute panel Thursday. IoT vulnerabilities have the attention of global businesses and governments, Remaley said: “We’re trying to get ahead of this but not stop innovation.” Response to global cybersecurity threats demands continuing commitment to the multistakeholder process, providing flexible options for industry and government, the panel heard. “We’re at an inflection point,” said Wilkinson Barker attorney Clete Johnson, an architect of National Institute of Standards and Technology's Cybersecurity Framework. Large-scale data breaches like at Equifax, growth in the number of distributed denial of service attacks fueled by botnets (see 1711210047), and increasing vulnerabilities in IoT devices are threats, he said. "We should be trying to increase the quality and security of IoT devices, and build security in at the outset of production,” said Eric Wenger, Cisco cybersecurity and privacy director-global government affairs. Cybersecurity is the only domain “where we ask companies to secure themselves,” said Kiersten Todt, Cyber Readiness Institute managing director. “We continue to use traditional frameworks and shoehorn them into a new landscape.” Todt, who worked in the Obama administration’s cybersecurity commission, said one of the “greatest risks” to national security is the amount of data stored after it’s outdated with no clear deletion procedures. “As America grapples with its cybersecurity challenges, it’s important to note that Europe has taken a different approach on privacy and cybersecurity standards," said Rudy Brioche, Comcast vice president-global public and policy counsel. Wenger said the rise of competing legal security and privacy standards isn't helpful to companies working globally, which is why global multistakeholder work is critical. Other PLI news: 1712070063 and 1712070047.