The National Cybersecurity Strategy
Spencer Foulk
Old Dominion University
CYSE 425W
Professor Demirel
March 25, 2024
Introduction
With advancements in technology and ever-changing economies, the rise for vulnerabilities and malicious related activities are on the rise. Due to this, it was necessary to develop a counteractive to the situation that would be able to prevent such devious acts from surfacing into something more serious. The National Cybersecurity Strategy is the counteractive that will help and prevent such acts. It has been released for a while now which has given it time to develop, and advance based off its first revision. I will be discussing its upbring and development to gain a full understanding of the operation and its intentions.
General review
The National Cybersecurity Strategy was first released around the year of 2023 on March the first by the Biden-Harris Administration. The goal of this framework was to provide a safe yet reliable workspace for patrons of all backgrounds so that work could get done effectively and efficiently. It also highlights,” several goals including economic security and prosperity, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, trust in democracy and democratic institutions, and an equitable and diverse society.” As a quick breakdown of each of the goals that the strategy hopes to achieve, we can start with economic security and prosperity.
The hope for this first goal is to guarantee safety and confidentiality for economic means. For instance, the growth that a country receives based on its economic prospects and human related efforts relates to the goal at hand.
As far as the second goal is concerned, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms is also highlighted. As far as this goal is concerned, its main striving point is to make sure that everyone is treated equally and as if they were one no matter their background. Doing so allows for a more cooperative system where everyone can function as a team, and it is also useful when searching for innovative ideas since different people provide different personal fundamentals and culture based on their upbringing.
The third goal has to do with trust in democracy and democratic institutions. This is relatively easy to understand and mainly involves trusting a higher power to inform you on what is right, wrong, and necessary to improve on your personal cyber hygienic situation or security safety in general.
Finally, we have the creation of a fair and diverse society as the last goal. To better explain this, it would be best to break the two into their respective halves. As far as their creation of a fair society, they hope to create a civilization of individuals where everyone can prosper and take part equally while being able to reach their full potential. For example, let’s say that Jason originates and was raised in eastern territories. Him and his family later move towards the United States for search of a better lifestyle and work-related occupation compared to their current one. After reaching the United States of America, Jason and his family must undergo a citizen naturalization. After doing so they would be granted the same number of rights as someone that is naturally born here in America. This is a rough example to show what the goal of a fair society hopes to conduct. A place where people can develop and benefit without limitations based on their upbringing. Lastly relating to the diverse society goal, they hope to bring together individuals of varying and wide-ranging backgrounds to create a society of people that can grow and diversify off each other. For example, culture from many parts of the world like Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, and Europe could be introduced with people that subside in North America and vice versa. This would be hugely beneficial to bring people together as a whole.
It is also worth noting that these goals are meant to serve as an improvement over the earlier strategy which introduces two newly developed shifts in the way that things will work which include rebalancing the responsibility to defend the cyberspace and realigning incentives to favor long-term investments. The first hopes to do this by appointing well and skillfully adjusted individuals to make the internet a better place while the second hopes to growth including a stronger cyber workforce, further security in design, and collaborative research among peers. The National Cybersecurity Framework of 2023 aimed to be a prosperous strategy with the hopes of setting new guidelines for the benefits of diversity and prosperity. However, this was only the beginning of what was hoped to be conducted.
Pillar Review
On top of a well-designed approach to the 2023 revision, the NCS also released five crucial pillars that would influence its longevity. The five pillars include defending critical infrastructure aimed at protecting structural integrity and confidentiality: disrupting and dismantling threats which is concerned with breaking down the malicious intent from these potential areas of harm: shape market forces to drive security and resilience which hopes to create an area where protection is held at a top priority: invest in a resilient future which is to basically plan out a list of events and procedures in order to bring out the best of future expectations: and finally to forge international partnerships in order to pursue shared goals which hopes to diversify its international relation to bring aboard other countries/nations of similar interest for the means of a protective nation. Each of the five listed Cybersecurity strategic pillars provide insight on what and when they hope to conduct their goal. While they are all beneficial and useful in their own unique ways, I found the fifth pillar, involved with forging international partnerships to pursue shared goals, to be the most useful of the five given its outreach to others and the benefits that it can provide.
As mentioned previously, the fifth pillar hopes to diversify its international relationships to bring about to bring likeminded countries and individuals for the means of protection but how truthful is this and how deep is its intention truly? From the looks of it, it seems to be a truthfully decided goal as the State Department Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy was created over a year ago for this job specifically and has been in operation diligently in hopes of strengthening international relations for retaliation against cyber related threats. There was also a large contribution by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration who,” awarded more than $130 million in grants from the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund that will help evaluate the security of open, interoperable wireless networks,” which was a huge help to its development. Personally, I see this as a pro move for future collaboration among nations of great distance since it will simplify long distance communication. One last thing that if found interesting was an interesting goal of theirs which was to build coalitions with the hopes of reinforcing global norms of responsible state behavior. I found it interesting because it looks to discuss the importance of refraining from cyber related operations that would damage structural integrity. This along with holding irresponsible states and individuals accountable for their actions when not upholding their commitments further staples it as my favored pillar of the five due to its determination.
The National Cybersecurity Strategy of 2023 is a unique revision that hopes to revitalize the remnants of the earlier strategy to provide one with a more up to date system, greater concepts and security, as well as a strong moral high ground on commitment when it comes to holding people accountable. The pillars shown by the strategy are a foundation of what it hopes to achieve and serve as a just representation of what we can hope to expect in the future.
References
Johnson, Rex. “Summary of the 2023 National Cybersecurity Strategy: Part 1,” Cai.io, Published
2023 – https://www.cai.io/resources/thought-leadership/summary-of-2023-national-cybersecurity-strategy-part-1
Johnson, Rex. “Summary of the 2023 National Cybersecurity Strategy: Part 3,” Cai.io, Published
2023 – https://www.cai.io/resources/thought-leadership/summary-of-2023-national-cybersecurity-strategy-part-3
“National Cybersecurity Strategy,” Whitehouse.gov, Published March 1, 2023 –
“Launching and Implementing the National Cybersecurity Strategy,” Gao.gov, Published June
29, 2023, officially released June 29, 2023 – https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106826
Coker, Harry. “One Year In: The President’s National Cybersecurity Strategy is Driving Change
and Protecting the Nation,” Whitehouse.gov, Published March 04, 2024 – https://www.whitehouse.gov/oncd/briefing-room/2024/03/04/national-cybersecurity-strategy-one-year/