The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released a new report yesterday that details plans to complement the nation’s existing cybersecurity policy, according to a blog entry on the office’s site co-authored by U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra and Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt.
In the 38-page document that deemed the Trustworthy Cyberspace: Strategic Plan for the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Program (.PDF), the effort is broken down into four separate tactics, or what the OSTP is referring to as “thrusts.”
Through the first thrust, ‘Inducing Change,’ the office stresses the use of new methods of problem-solving to tackle existing cybersecurity problems with “the goal of disrupting the status quo.”
The second strategy, ‘Developing Scientific Foundations,’ expects to develop the science of security by better developing methods, techniques, and control theories for attacks. The office expects this to produce very intellect- and metric-heavy results that will help minimize future problems.
By ‘Maximizing Research impact,’ the office wants to further engage the cybersecurity research community and foster connections to Federal agencies for “maximum effectiveness.”
Lastly, the office aims to ‘Accelerate Transition to Practice’, or to better translate and commercialize all of this research. The report claims there’s currently a “chasm” of a gap between the research community and the operations community – bridging that gap is the intent of this thrust.
The Trustworthy Cyberspace plan, in the words of John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, aspires to use “game-changing” R&D as part of its foundation.
The plan comes nearly two and a half years after the Obama Administration’s initial Cyberspace Policy Review (.PDF), issued shortly after he took office in 2009.
