http://www.networkworld.com/article/2363025/security/fcc-will-push-network-providers-on-cybersecurity-wheeler-says.html
By Grant Gross
IDG News Service
June 12, 2014
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is threatening to step in with
regulations if network providers don't improve cybersecurity.
The FCC will take steps to encourage cybersecurity in the coming months,
acting first as a promotor of company-led initiatives instead of a
regulator, in keeping with its congressionally defined mission to promote
the national defense and public safety, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said. But
if that doesn't lead to improvements, the agency is prepared to act.
"The challenge is that this private sector-led effort must be more dynamic
than traditional regulation and more measurably effective than blindly
trusting the market or voluntary best practices to defend our country,"
Wheeler said during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute for
Public Policy Research. "We believe there is a new regulatory paradigm
where the commission relies on industry and the market first while
preserving other options if that approach is unsuccessful."
Echoing the current debate over the FCC's authority to enforce net
neutrality rules, Wheeler promised that the agency will push network
operators to improve cybersecurity even as those companies move more of
their traffic from the more heavily regulated analog telephone network to
more lightly regulated Internet Protocol-based networks.
[...]
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