In the United States government, the National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, is a component of the larger National Strategy for Homeland Security. The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace was drafted by the Department of Homeland Security in reaction to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Released on February 14, 2003, it offers suggestions, not mandates, to business, academic, and individual users of cyberspace to secure computer systems and networks. It was prepared after a year of research by businesses, universities, and government, and after five months of public comment. The plan advises a number of security practices as well as promotion of cyber security education.
The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace identifies three strategic objectives: (1) Prevent cyber attacks against America's critical infrastructures; (2) Reduce national vulnerability to cyber attacks; and (3) Minimize damage and recovery time from cyber attacks that do occur. To meet these objectives, the National Strategy outlines five national priorities: The first priority, the creation of a National Cyberspace Security Response System, focuses on improving the government’s response to cyberspace security incidents and reducing the potential damage from such events. The second, third, and fourth priorities (the development of a National Cyberspace Security Threat and Vulnerability Reduction Program, the creation of a National Cyberspace Security Awareness and Training Program, the necessity of Securing Governments' Cyberspace) aim to reduce threats from, and vulnerabilities to, cyber attacks. The fifth priority, the establishment of a system of National Security and International Cyberspace Security Cooperation, intends to prevent cyber attacks that could impact national security assets and to improve the international management of and response to such attacks.
Ultimately, the National Strategy encourages companies to regularly review their technology security plans, and individuals who use the Internet to add firewalls and anti-virus software to their systems. It calls for a single federal center to help detect, monitor and analyze attacks, and for expanded cyber security research and improved government-industry cooperation.
Famous quotes containing the words national, strategy, secure and/or cyberspace:
“National isolation breeds national neurosis.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“... the generation of the 20’s was truly secular in that it still knew its theology and its varieties of religious experience. We are post-secular, inventing new faiths, without any sense of organizing truths. The truths we accept are so multiple that honesty becomes little more than a strategy by which you manage your tendencies toward duplicity.”
—Ann Douglas (b. 1942)
“Reclusive? The inner city will secure your privacy better than any desert cave.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
““The matrix is God?”
“In a manner of speaking, although it would be more accurate ... to say that the matrix has a God, since this being’s omniscience and omnipotence are assumed to be limited to the matrix.”
“If it has limits, it isn’t omnipotent.”
“Exactly.... Cyberspace exists, insofar as it can be said to exist, by virtue of human agency.””
—William Gibson (b. 1948)