U.S. Government Offers Businesses Cyber Security Guidelines

In an attempt to awaken industry in the aftermath of a growing epidemic of relentless hacking successes against U.S. business targets, the U.S. Government has outlined a Cyber Security framework for businesses to begin implementing.  The Obama Administration has directed the National Institute of Standards & Technology, or NIST, to develop the framework as a recommendation to U.S. businesses and includes many well known best practices already employed by members of the Cyber Security community.

The framework and related recommendations are meant to bring the threat of cyber theft and espionage to the fore front of business’ goal lists.  By defining where a particular company stands as far as security posture, it will allow organizations to schedule and budget to improve their computer networks’ security.  The goal of the framework is not to eliminate cyber security threats, but rather to patch the low hanging vulnerabilities in almost every company and try and make good security practices a standard.