President Obama's cybersecurity plan

President Obama's Cybersecurity plan addresses many of the government's shortcomings when it comes to cyber threats.

The Obama administration today also released a cyber-policy assessment.

Q: What is in cyber-security policy review?

A: The White House has decided to create a single point person to lead the government's cybersecurity initiatives -- a cybersecurity czar, if you will.

There has some debate about whether that role was necessary, but the report makes it clear that there needs to be a person who can coordinate the country's cybersecurity policies and activities.

All of this comes following a 60-day top-to-bottom review of the government's cybersecurity initiatives.

The president today also spoke about privacy and civil liberties.

Often, the public debate pits security against privacy.

For cybersecurity, often privacy and security are closely linked. That's because un-secured systems can be hacked and very often gets stolen is personal information.

Q: What are people saying about the administration's findings?

A: In a word -- happy.

I have spoken to a number of government IT officials and cybersecurity experts and they all are generally pleased to have senior officials focusing on cybersecurity.

Many cybersecurity experts have been concerned that this issue has been overlooked for too long and that there are some real vulnerabilities.

We all know how dependent we are on technology to do almost everything.

And the Internet has become an increasingly vital part of how business gets done.

Among the people I spoke to, several of them were very happy to have the president himself speaking out on this issue.

Many of them were searching for a coordinated government focus, and they are hopeful that this will be the start of that.

Read more about it at DorobekInsider.

(Copyright 2009 by FederalNewsRadio.com. All Rights Reserved.)