PRESS RELEASE
February 9 2016 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Washington, DC
CONTACT: LARRY CLINTON 202-236-0001 or lclinton@isalliance.org)
ISA PRAISES ADMINISTRATION FOR BUDGET INCREASES FOR CYBER SECURITY
The Internet Security Alliance (ISA) today praised the Obama Administration for the substantial increases to improve our nation’s cyber security program that are called for in their final budget.
In testimony last month before the House Science Committee ISA had criticized the government for not acting with adequate urgency regarding the cyber threat and for the comparatively modest 11% annual increases in spending the government had been approving. ISA compared government spending unfavorably to the 24% increases that are being reported by the private sector. The Administration’s final budget now calls for a 35% increase over last year’s spending levels.
“We have been advocating for a greater commitment and investment in cyber security and the new budget is a welcome step in the right direction,” said ISA President Larry Clinton.
While praising the budget proposal Clinton also emphasized that more needs to be done. “We can’t just throw money at the problem,” Clinton said “we have also been advocating that there needs to be better management of the money we are investing in cyber security. Programs ought to be subjected to systematic cost benefit analysis so that we can document where they are, and are not succeeding.” ISA’s testimony noted that for example the NIST cyber security Framework has not been subjected to any systematic evaluation and as a result “nearly 2 years after the Framework was released we don’t have any objective evidence of what in the Framework is actually improving security.”
ISA is also advocating for some of the new money in the President’s budget be used to fulfill the original requirements of the President’s 2013 Executive Order on cyber security. “The NIST Framework needs to be prioritized to make it more user friendly for small companies, we need to beta test it to determine the delta between effectiveness and cost effectiveness and develop the menu of market incentives that are called for both in the President’s Order and the House GOP Task Force Report on cyber security,” Clinton said.
“We welcome these dramatic increases in proposed spending by the Administration but there is a great deal more we need to be doing urgently. This is defiantly a step in the right direction, but the road to creating a sustainable secure cyber system is a very long one,” said Clinton.
The Internet Security Alliance (ISA) is a unique multi-sector trade association, which provides thought leadership and strong public policy advocacy as well as business and technical services to its membership. The ISA represents enterprises from the aviation, banking, communications, defense, education, financial services, insurance, manufacturing, security, and technology industries.