The White House has announced in a public statement entitled, “Strengthening America’s Cybersecurity”, that they are taking aggressive actions to “lock our digital doors” to protect critical infrastructure, and consumers from cybersecurity threats.
The announcement was made public October 11, which touches on crucial areas of our nation’s security including critical infrastructure, raising cybersecurity requirements, countering ransomware, and creating a label system for Internet of Things (IoT) devices modeled off of Energy Star.
The goal for the labeling system is to make it easy for consumers to quickly assess the depth and veracity of the cybersecurity testing a product has underwent prior to market release.
According to the statement, the labels must meet “United States government standards and are tested by vetted and approved entities.” Initially, the scope of the labeling effort will include devices Americans purchase for their homes such as routers and cameras, “to deliver the most impact quickly.”
As reported by Cyberscoop, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) standards will be used and “will need to be tailored to specific products.”
It is unclear exactly what the labeling will look like, or how it will be presented on consumer packaging. Cyberscoop suggests it may be a barcode or QR-code label, which consumers can quickly scan for further information. The White House is apparently studying how countries such as Singapore and Finland have deployed similar labeling efforts.
One area the labeling effort does not appear to address for consumers is software. It also appears to focus—so far anyway—strictly on consumers, instead of vendors or software companies.
The announcement is ambitious and already has its critics, but it is a big step forward in cybersecurity threat education and establishing some sort of scoring metric for devices. Hopefully, it will include data for consumers to review with regard to how the rating was achieved, and not just a gold star.
