At the Wall Street Journal CIO Network, held Feb. 2-3 in San Diego, Howard A. Schmidt, former cybersecurity advisor for Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, offered three ways the government can better work with the private sector to improve cybersecurity.
1. Protection of information sharing. Mr. Schmidt mentioned the recent bill introduced by Congressman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) that would allow the government and the private sector share cyber intelligence data. While the bill bolsters communication in the intelligence community, it doesn't relieve viability issues needed in the private sector, he said.
2. Get away from user IDs and passwords. Mr. Schmidt advocates for the private sector to develop an ecosystem that moves away from the user IDs and passwords, and said the government would be very willing to follow suit. "Do away with this whole issue of identity management," he said.
3. Use encryption in conjunction with digital identity. "For example, if we fully recognize that at some point we can't protect them, whether somebody leaves a USB stick somewhere or anything else, we want to make sure that whoever gets it does not have the ability to do anything," Mr. Schmidt said. If hacks are going to happen, he said, devices should be encrypted.
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