Introduction
The leadership of the United States of America, in particular, the current president and the Congress define that strengthening of the cybersecurity of the country is one of the main spheres of the activity of the state bodies and relevant organizations within the country. The President highlights that today the country cannot respond and address properly the challenges posed to the cyberspace of the state so that the appropriate measures and programs should be developed. Besides, the reformation of the cybersecurity has been launched in 2009 upon the adoption of the recommendations to the improvement of the cybersecurity in form of the Cyberspace Policy Review. Moreover, the special office under the title Executive Branch Cybersecurity Coordinator has been created in order to govern the activity of the relevant state authorities having the purpose to cooperate with each other at the improvement of the strategy of the country. The ongoing technological developments influence the spread of the cyber attacks so that the countries should adjust to the risks posed by this process. In addition, the cyber attacks are regarded today as the instruments of the achievement of the objectives by the countries in the international arena for the resolution of the particular issues so that the strong cybersecurity strategy may serve the role of the important tool for the country in exercising the influence over the other states.
In this respect, the main purpose of this project is to define the pros and cons of the current strategy and programs of the United States of America in the sphere of the maintenance of the cybersecurity. Moreover, the perspective recommendations may be developed based on the practice and experience of the European Union and other countries taking the leading positions in the management of cyber attacks.
Overview of Notion of Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is the important aspect of the living of every individual, activity of the organization and role of the state in the society. Besides, there is no exact definition of the notion of the cybersecurity due to the huge variety of the tools and forms of the cyber crimes and risks that may be addressed by the security framework. In terms of the Information Communication Technologies, the cybersecurity should be understood as the combination of several instruments, policies, recommendations, risk management approaches and relevant technologies that have the purpose to maintain the safe cyber environment for the protection of the personal information of the individual, company, organization, state. In order to get the understanding of the cybersecurity, one should pay attention for the consideration of the cyber crimes. The overall amount of the criminal actions in the cyber space may be divided into the following groups:
Crimes against the integrity of the computer information and its confidentiality;
Offences related to the computer systems as the computer fraud;
Crimes aimed to present the content that may negatively influence the development of the society;
Crimes, which address the violation of the copyright and any related rights (Harknett & Stever, 2009).
Within 2015, the U.S. Office of Homeland Security has defined the increase in the cybercrimes attacking the digital environment of the state, so that the issue of the improvement of the safety of the digital space should be improved. Although, there are several legislative acts that define the measures of the federal state bodies for the regulation of the cybersecurity. In addition, in 2009 the President of the United States of America has developed and appointed Howard Schmidt for the position of the White House Cybersecurity Coordinator which is responsible for the maintenance of the safety of the information related to the security of the state. Accordingly, jointly with the relevant state bodies operating within the different units of the United States of America, the representatives of the authorities should cooperate between each other for the implementation of the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. There are the following dimensions for the improvement of the current cybersecurity of the USA:
Creation of the front line for the maintenance of the safety of the information and the entire data against the perspective threats posed by the cyber crimes so that the immediate response can be provided;
Elaboration of the measures that may address the all threats taking place within the cyber space;
Nowadays, the goal of the management of the country in accordance with the National Cybersecurity Strategy is to facilitate the development of the transparent and secure information infrastructure. In this respect, the United States have several cyberspace capabilities that may influence in the positive manner the reformation of the current cyber strategy. The pivotal sphere of the responsibility on the promotion of the cyber resilience lies on the Department of Himeland Security. This state body has the authority to observe the protection of the governmental and civilian networks in the manner that promotes the security of the infrastructure. At the same time, the main function of the DHS is to respond to the cyber threats within the reasonable time in order to present the leakage of the information which may damage the privacy of the individual, organization. Besides, the spread of the cyber crimes is caused by the fact that by virtue of the innovative technological instruments the states fights with each other in order to obtain the sensitive information about the other state which may pose the threat to the military activity of the country, it's political plans, etc. Therefore, the profound system of the state bodies should operate within the country so that the representatives of these state bodies may deter the cyber threat at any level regardless of the venue of the origin of the threat. Although, in contrast to the European Union, the United States has no relevant state body which may prosecute the criminal offenders in sphere of the cyber crimes. Despite the absence of the supranational body that may govern the juridical prosecution over the violators, the other federal state bodies follow them in order to impose the relevant punishment. In this regards, the US Secret Service jointly with the US Immigration and Customs enforcement and cyber crimes center perform the functions within the DHS (Iasiello, 2013).
Meanwhile, the current state bodies of the USA recognize the importance to stay focused as the following elements of the cyber security:
National strategy and the interference of government with regard to the elaboration of the responses to the cyber attacks;
Amendments of the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2992 which defines the framework of the activity of the state bodies in the sphere of he cyber security which have the authority to promote the development of the cyber security standards and principles on different levels;
Introduction of the measures that may increase the level of the protection of the infrastructure by prevention the certain amount of the cyber attacks;
Persecution of the criminal offenders;
Attraction of the investments to the development of the companies operation within the cyber security:
The improvement of the cyber security workforce;
Strengthening of the privacy of the ordinary individuals enjoying the access to the information technologies;
Development of the mechanisms of the imposition of the penalties over the offenders in the cyber space (Chang, 2013).
Consequently, it should be said that current regulation of the cyberspace of the United States of America cover the numerous acts adopted by the Congress and the relevant state bodies of the executive branch for the realization of the policy goals of the government and the president. Meanwhile, the legislative acts pursue the aim to facilitate the management of the business units performing the functions within the USA to pay more attention to the improvement the protection of the information systems so that the exposure to the cyber attacks can be decreased. Beyond the overwhelming amount of the legal acts governing the cyber space, the Cybersecurity Information Security Act adopted in 2015 poses the main significance for the purposes of this paper. The main objective of this legal instrument is to develop the mechanism that will provide the society with the opportunity to share the information about any cyber attacks and threats. Despite the fact, that the provisions of the Act raise a lot of concerns with regards to the integrity of the personal information of the business units which is submitted to the DHS office and other state authorities, the bill was adopted with the aim to prohibit the forthcoming share of the ocnfidential and commercial information (Decker, 2003).
In addition, the opponents of the Cybersecurity Act believe that this legal instrument has a lot of omissions due to the fact that it does not identify the exact nature of the cooperation between the state authorities and the private entities. However, there are some positive provisions in the text of the Act. For example, particular norms of the act stipulate the existence of the liability protection for the certain group of the business units in case any company has used the right to share the information posing the threat to the cybersecurity of the country or business environment. Furthermore, the exchange of the purely commercial information between the business units is prohibited by the antitrust legislation so that the Cybersecurity Act provides the room for the unlimited actions of the business units for sharing the infirmation between each other with the purpose to prevern the cyber attack. In this regard, some experts believe that existence of the aintitrust protection in the text of the Cybersecurity Act should influence the competetive environment in the negative manner as the companies will cooperate with each other (Jang-Jaccard & Nepal, 2014).
In contrast, the existing Executive Order 13636 operating within the territory of the United States of America has the purpose to strengthen the cyberspace infrastructure. The act was adopted in 2013 so that define the sphere of the responsibility of the state authorities in the protection of the digital infrastructure. According to the text of this order, the National Institute of Standards and Technology should regularly develop and present the «Cybersecurity Framework» based on which the business units in USA should implement the defensive measures for the purpose of improvement the cyberspace protection. At the same time, in 2015 the President of the USA in 2015 adopted new order according to which the Department of Homeland Security should cooperate with any third state body on the preparation of the standards appllicable for the sharing of the information between the organizations. However, it should be stated that the United States recognize the importance of the cooperation with other countries in the sphere of the improvement of the current cybersecurity strategy as by virtue of this partnership the countries may exchange the experience and find the gaps in personal program. In this regard, the USA has a close partnership with Japan on the improvement of the cyberspaces. The cooperation between the states in this dimension also leads to the imposition of the relevant commitments according to which the parties are obliged not to violate the cyberspace of each other due to its importance to the safety and security of the state.
Consequently, it should be said that inadequate response to the spread of the cyber attacks may result in the economic and financial burden to the leadership of the USA. In particular, accoding to the calculation of the DHS, up to 2020 the damage occurred by the cyber attack may result in $1 trillion of financial loss. Therefore, the cyber security should be regarded as the static problem which requires the immediate and permanent solution. In this regard, it is necessary to note the following challenges that current government of the USA faces in the cyberspace:
Increasing complexity of the cyber space environment due to the technological and innovative development;
Increase of the volumes of the information generated in the cyberspace;
Sophistication of the cyber threats due to which particular cyber attacks are quite difficult to define regardless of the fact that its impacts the activity of the organization immediately;
The absence of the transperancy at the desired level between the organizations and the government about the measures adopted by the management of the company in order to tackle the threat and overcome the results of the attack;
The cyber attacks are moving to the mobile sphere where the state is not able to control the attacks at the same level as within the organizational structure of the company;
The protection of the data and any other information is muc more critical today as the spread of the usage of the mobile devices is increasing and the state should respond to in the nearest future (Wilson, 2014).
In fact, it is also possible to state the activity of the relevant state authorities in the USA as to the improvement of the measures for the identification of the cyber attacks is high. Since 2015, the Department of the Defense is working at the Network Penetration Reporting and Contracting for Cloud Services. This rule orders the companies to report about any threats to the critical information which poses the comercial significance for the company and the industry in general. The leakage of the sensitive information may damage the business environment of any country due to the fact that the cyber space offenders may take the information about the scientific researches, developments and achievements of the copanies operating in the USA what forces its economic development.
Given the abovementiones challenges posed to the society of the USA in general, the leadership of the country nowadays accepts the necessity and importance to develop and the military need for the formation of the reliable and safe networks. In fact the military sphere of any country today is closely linked to the digital environment so that the country should put the efforts at the protection of the information about the military plans, which are used for the protection of the national values and interests. At the same time, the main sphere of the activity today is the enhancement of the possible militaty alliances between the different states including NATO in order to have the common understanding in the elaboration the measures at the confrontation the perspective attacks and threats in the cyberspace. In this regard, the United States highlights on the fact that the removal of the threats within the cyberspace is the long-lasting period which require the efforts of all the nations due to the fact that it allows to combine the resources available in the states. Thus, the expansion of the cooperation between the states in the cyberspace may provide the countries and the USA in general with the opportunity to improve the collective security and prevent the significant threats and attacks in this dimension.
References
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