Yesterday, the president’s cybersecurity coördinator, Michael Daniel, appeared in San Francisco at the world’s largest security conference, RSA, to explain how the president’s cybersecurity executive order—intended to help U.S. critical infrastructure to withstand computer attacks—will operate. The order, announced by President Obama earlier this month, will create voluntary security standards for power utilities and other infrastructure companies and allow them to receive classified government information about security threats.

 

Securing critical infrastructure is a growing concern to the government; last fall, secretary Leon Panetta said the United States could experience a “cyber Pearl Harbor” (see “U.S. Power Grids a Hacking Target”).