Well, after almost what felt like an eternity the USA presidential election is finally over. I say that and I am an Australian, my heart goes out to my American friends who have lived through this political merry go round.
Now that the American people have voted and elected a new President. I thought I would write an article on the President elects cyber security / cyber laws etc and see where he (and America from 20 Jan 2017) stand on the matter.
To put it bluntly and I’m not alone here in thinking this, his policies on cybersecurity are weak and dangerously vague. When he campaigned his vagueness showed where he states that he would review cyber defences and push for greater cyber-awareness across government. This I’m sure is more of a reaction to the whole Hillary Clinton email fiasco. An email fiasco she was cleared for not on one occasion but two.
Mr President elect has a 10 year old son and would often talk about how good his son is with computers. I hope that he is not being briefed by a 10 year old son in this regard. Granted my nearly 9 year old son is a whiz on the iPad (show me a 9 year old who is not) but to continually mentioning his son and his computer ability, also demonstrates his knowledge and weakness on the issue.
We already live in a world of disruption due to cyber-warfare which Americans know to well instances such as politically-motivated hacks, DDOS attacks on infrastructure, cyber-espionage and countless IP matters. With Trump’s knowledge on these and now that he will be the leader of the USA a country that is prone to cyber-warfare, he is going to need good people around him.
One thing that Non-Americans may not understand is that many countries do not like America. This is for their own reasons and now with the election result surprising many, it now may have many other countries now feeling this way, due to fear that the President elect has said during campaigning. My point here is that now with the increased threat, wouldn’t it be a good idea for Trump to start to address cyber security more seriously then talking about how good his 10 year old son is on computers.
I have read many articles on the changing landscape now that Trump has been elected and Silicon Valley are treading carefully as they are worried about the protection of their networks as they are the lifeblood of business. But perhaps the USA and even the world should also now share more than ever the same fear as the cyber networks are also our lifeblood.
I will watch this space with more interest than ever before.
below is a screen capture of Donald J. Trump’s Cybersecurity Vision taken from his website at https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/cyber-security
