Panel developing infrastructure protection recommendations

Members of a White House advisory committee focused on protecting cyber and physical infrastructures are on track to finish a handful of reports -- and make recommendations to President Bush -- by the time of the panel's July meeting.

The National Infrastructure Advisory Council, which consists of more than 100 chief information officers -- gathered for its quarterly meeting Tuesday in Washington to hear updates from its working groups on infrastructure protection.

The reports included studies on strengthening the Internet against attacks, creating a common system for scoring infrastructure vulnerabilities to disclose risks, prioritizing cyber vulnerabilities, evaluating and enhancing how executives and government officials share and analyze information, and regulations for certain industry sectors.

The council, which moved through each presentation with little debate, plans to use the final reports to recommend cyber and physical security measures to the White House and Homeland Security Department. It has sent two reports to the Bush administration since the council was created two years ago, and the department has implemented several recommendations.

The most controversial report addressed whether government should mandate security improvements by the private sector. Marilyn Ware, the chairwoman of American Waterworks, said her working group found that "no regulation is needed" for now across industry sectors, including telecommunications, financial, transportation and 11 others being reviewed.

The group said two-thirds of the council favors market-focused incentives to increasing security. But some industry representatives also said regulations may be needed for certain sectors.

The group's recommendations will focus on understanding sectors, adopting "best practices" for security and then, before issuing regulations, examining the strength of specific markets, as well as the response and impact of failing to bolster security. The group takes direction from "guiding questions" like: Will the market focus over time? Could the sector provide its own solutions? And could regulations be applied successfully?

One official expressed concern that regulation could "blunt innovation" for certain sectors.

John Chambers, NIAC's vice chairman and Cisco Systems' CEO, praised the working group's efforts. He said he is pleased that the executives realized the approaches should vary for each industry sector.