cybersecurity

Leaders who understand and can leverage effective management tools and practices are better prepared to execute on their priorities and see measurable, positive program results. The IBM Center for The Business of Government is committed to helping identify and distill the lessons learned from the past, identify current and new management initiatives and capacities that will be needed to address key challenges facing the country in this administration, and offer ideas on implementation.

These attacks are relentless, aggressive and constantly evolving, and have clearly shown that federal agencies and organizations are struggling in managing security threats, despite the stricter security protocols that are often in place at government agencies. Cyber threats are “among the most urgent dangers to America’s economic and national security,” President Obama was quoted as saying in a Wall Street Journal article in 2015.

This report is the product of a group of experts, which was convened by the Department of Computer Science at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). IUP brought together an interdisciplinary panel of experts in national security, international relations, foreign policy, information system network and security, public policy, and computer science. These experts participated in two collaborative roundtable meetings during the first six months of 2014.

Both corporations and government have responded by creating a new role in their organizations to lead the safeguarding efforts—chief information security officers. The role of these officers is still under development. Do they safeguard best by using law enforcement techniques and technological tools? Or are they more effective if they serve as educators and try to influence the behaviors of technology users?