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 Speaking at Stanford University, Obama told Silicon Valley and
financial services CEOs that they needed to share more information
more quickly both with each other and with his administration.
"Government cannot do this alone. But the fact is that the private
sector can't do it alone either because it's government that often
has the latest information on new threats," he told a gathering of
CEOs.
Obama has moved cyber security toward the top of his 2015 agenda
after the recent breaches but senior figures from the tech world who
are at odds with the administration over government surveillance
stayed away from his speech.
The Sony attack was particularly worrying for U.S. officials, who
blamed North Korea for stealing data, debilitating computers and
pressuring the studio to halt the release of "The Interview," a
satirical film about leader Kim Jong Un.
Obama, in an interview with tech news website Re/code, said the Sony
attack was especially worrisome because "it's not as if North Korea
is particularly good as this." The president added that China and
Russia are "very good" and Iran is "good" at cyber attacks.
"There's only one way to defend America from these cyber threats and
that is through government and industry working together, sharing
appropriate information as true partners," Obama said in his speech.
He met privately with a small group of business leaders in Silicon
Valley to try to mend fences with tech companies still smarting over
damage to their businesses when government surveillance practices
were exposed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward
Snowden.
Obama acknowledged in the Re/code interview that the Snowden
disclosures "were really harmful in terms of the trust between the
government and many of these companies, in part because it had an
impact on their bottom lines."
Upset about the lack of reforms to surveillance programs, the CEOs
of Google Inc, Facebook Inc and Yahoo Inc stayed away from Friday's
conference.
Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook gave an address and CEOs from
PayPal, Intel Corporation, Visa and other financial services
companies attended.
Cook warned about unspecified threats to privacy.
“We still live in a world where not all people are treated equally.
Too many people are not free to practice their religion, or speak
their mind, or love who they choose,” Cook said. “If those of us in
positions of responsibility fail to do everything in our power to
protect the right to privacy, we risk far more than money ... we
risk our way of life.”
In his Re/code interview, Obama said Europe's concern about privacy
for users of Facebook and Google are "more commercially driven than
anything else." He said European companies that "can't compete with
ours" are using the issue to try to put up "roadblocks" for U.S.
tech firms.
MALICIOUS ACTIVITY
American Express Co CEO Kenneth Chenault said there was ample room
for improving cooperation against hacking.
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Though the card issuer scans constantly for threats, Chenault said
only 5 percent of the cases the company finds are already the
subject of warnings from other members in the financial sector’s
well-regarded Information Sharing and Analysis Center. Only 1
percent of the threats has already been flagged by the federal
government.
“Information-sharing may be the single highest-impact, lowest-cost
and fastest way to implement capabilities we have in hand as a
nation to accelerate our overall defense,” Chenault said.
The White House wants businesses to exchange more information about
any attacks as rapidly as possible.
While at Stanford, Obama signed an executive order aimed making that
happen by promoting hubs where companies can share information with
each other and with the Department of Homeland Security.
If emails hit employees at one company with a link to a website
loaded with code that can give hackers access to the network, that
company should feel free to warn its competitors without worrying
about antitrust or privacy rules, the White House argues.
The administration would like to automate the process as much as
possible, so that machines would be informed what malicious websites
or email addresses to block within minutes.
"The information we want to be moving is the information on things
that actually indicate malicious activity. And so that’s malware
indicators, that’s indicators of compromise, that’s bad IP
addresses," Michael Daniel, the White House’s cyber security
coordinator, told reporters.
Obama's executive order is one step in a long effort to make
companies as well as privacy and consumer advocates more comfortable
with proposed legislation that would offer firms protection from
being sued for handing over customer information to the government.
Some executives said cyber security issues were leading to greater
fragmentation of global business, and that the private sector could
not overcome that without more serious discussion between
governments.
"There’s a protectionism developing," said Bank of America CEO Brian
Moynihan. "You’ve got to store the data here, you’ve got to use
these providers."
(Additional reporting by Joseph Menn, Julia Edwards and Amanda
Becker; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by John Whitesides,
Christian Plumb and Eric Beech)
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