Public-Private Partnerships Critical to Fighting Cyber Threats, Says CTA

The following statement is attributed to Julie Kearney, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, Consumer Technology Association (CTA), regarding the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's final report on botnets and other automated threats to the digital ecosystem: 

"For the Internet of Things ecosystem to thwart cyber threats, the Department of Commerce (DoC) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have jointly released a roadmap that gives the industry and government the flexibility to strengthen our country's cybersecurity. Public-private partnerships will be the vital ingredient needed to mitigate botnets and distributed forms of attack. Both network operators and manufacturers need to work together to address IoT standardization through voluntary standards and increase the awareness and importance of software upgrades to consumers. We thank DoC and DHS for their leadership role in convening private sector input on cybersecurity issues. And in the coming days, CTA looks forward to releasing further details about industry efforts to build on these and other efforts to secure our IoT ecosystem." 

In conjunction with the final botnet report, CTA has convened a group of cybersecurity experts to fight botnets and other security threats to consumer technologies. The group will organize and make visible the large body of standards, best practices, secure ecosystems and third-party security certification programs. By structuring industry efforts, CTA and member companies will increase visibility into as-deployed best practices and expand security techniques to more corners of the IoT ecosystem. The industry group will provide private-sector leadership towards meeting industry goals and actions identified in the report.