Venable's Managing Director of Cybersecurity Services, Ari Schwartz, was interviewed in an April 6, 2017, SearchSecurity article on a push by intelligence officials to increase the sharing of threat intelligence between the public and private sectors. National Security Agency deputy director Richard Ledgett and FBI director James Comey recently said cybersecurity defense could be improved if businesses were more willing to share cyberattack information with the federal government.
"I don't think that more information sharing from the government is going to make a huge dent in the cybersecurity issue," said Schwartz. "I do think that government information will help certain kinds of companies in certain situations and therefore is worth pushing for, but anyone suggesting that it is going to change the ability to protect most companies is overstating the case. Greater info sharing is helpful, but it does not solve every cybersecurity problem that we have."
According to Schwartz, a primary concern among businesses is the added risk by sharing information without any incentives. "They need to continue to promote sharing [and] demonstrate success through the Automated Indicator Sharing program and promote Information Sharing and Analysis organizations," he said. "The majority of the rest are a general concern from companies about sharing breach information with anyone outside the company. This is harder to overcome. The best way is to build sharing organizations that engender trust over time."