During the last two years of the Bush administration, the senior leadership at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spent substantial time and effort in first helping to craft, and then attempting to implement, Homeland Security Presidential Directive 23/National Security Presidential Directive 54 (HSPD 23/NSPD 54), Cyber Security and Monitoring.
Category Archives: Vol. 4 No. 1
Cybersecurity: National Leadership, Individual Responsibility | This issue contributes to the national debate on cyber-related issues by supplying some of the missing pieces of the discussion, focusing on the largest and most difficult sub-set: cybersecurity.
A Comparative Study of the Information Security Policies of Japan and the United States
This article describes the information security policies and institutions of the Japanese government and draws attention to comparable policies and institutions of the U.S. government. We begin with a discussion of Japan’s cybersecurity system. In Part II, we examine a particular type of information security policy, namely, cryptography policy, as a special example of how the different systems operate. Japan has implemented a cryptography policy that draws extensively on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Cryptography Policy Guidelines. These guidelines are discussed to highlight issues that might emerge in the future in cryptography and merit attention at an international level. Part III analyzes anti-bot policy. Bots, an increasing concern on the Internet, break into an individual user’s PC and remotely control it. Bots pose a real problem for many nations, and there is clearly a need for multinational cooperation. This article concludes by suggesting that all involved parties must determine the appropriate extent of lawful access to communications. Moreover, cooperation in eliminating bots provides a good opportunity for Japan and the United States to lead an international effort.
U.S. International Policy for Cybersecurity: Five Issues That Won’t Go Away
On May 29, 2009, President Obama released his Cyberspace Policy Review (the Review). The Review, conducted by the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, examined existing government initiatives addressing cyberspace security in order to develop a strategic framework to coordinate government action. The Review put cybersecurity on the policy agenda early in the Obama administration, and it explicitly describes cybersecurity as a global issue that calls for international cooperation: “The United States . . . needs a strategy for cybersecurity designed to shape the international environment and bring like-minded nations together on a host of issues… Only by working with international partners can the United States best address these challenges, enhance cybersecurity, and reap the full benefits of the digital age.”