Venable's Managing Director of Cybersecurity Services Ari Schwartz was interviewed in a December 2, 2016, Politico article on a report from the president’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity set to be released later today. The report is expected to cover six key cybersecurity areas and a proposed list of action items for the next administration.
"The goal here was always to avoid the situation that the Obama administration found themselves [in] coming in," said Schwartz. "There was a push to have this cyber plan written in 60 days [at the start of Obama's first term], and there was a lot of infighting over that, and a lot of it had to be done really, really quickly…And they ended up working off that over the next four years. The 30 recommendations from that basically became something that had to get done, that they were graded on. And it’s hard to look back and say, ‘Something that was put together in 60 days should have that kind of impact on an administration.’ You want something that has longer thought to it."
Schwartz added that he expects the report to be more of a primer for people new to cybersecurity issues and not break new ground on the subject. "People that are coming into the issue, maybe have read a little bit about it but don’t know all the details — this gives the opportunity to get people steeped deeper in the issues and lay out a bunch of options that smart people have looked at."