Obama gets good marks on first cybersecurity report card

 With the Obama administration’s new cybersecurity coordinator named and stories abounding about nefarious Chinese and other hacker activity, it’s perhaps appropriate that the first year evaluations of the administration’s cybersecurity performance are rolling in. More than a pass grade, it seems.

James Lewis, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a government security guru if anyone deserves that moniker, gives a B or even B-plus. He also points to signs of interesting, if not yet encouraging, activity at various agencies.

Lewis is someone who has swung his allegiance to limited regulation of the Internet, after warning in the 1996 that regulation could stifle creativity. Now, he says an unrestrained Internet is just not realistic and that the government needs to take an energetic lead on certain things, such as IT infrastructure protection.