Podcast: What to expect from the Trump Executive Order

What will Donald Trump’s Executive Order on cyber security bring with it? We spoke with two security pros to get their thoughts.

In-brief: What will the impact of the Cyber Executive Order be? We sat down with two experts to get their thoughts.

The news this week out of Capitol Hill was all about the attempted repeal and replacement of The Affordable Care Act, but if cyber security is your thing, the real political news comes next week, when President Trump is expected to release his Administration’s cyber security executive order: the official guidance from President Trump to Executive Branch agencies.

With incidents like the hack of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Office of personnel management still fresh in people’s memory, the stakes are high. For an administration that hasn’t been shy about breaking with precedent, what will the impact of the Cyber Executive Order be? We sat down with two experts to get their thoughts: Travis Farral is the Director of Security Strategy at Anomali, a former security intelligence supervisor at ExxonMobil and former election official for the State of Texas. And Mike Shultz, is the CEO of Cybernance – a cyber risk governance platform designated by the DHS as a qualified anti-terrorism technology.

The two told me that, judging by drafts of the cyber Executive Order, there’s reason to be hopeful. The Trump Administration is planning to put its weight behind respected standards from NIST for securing IT environments and to demand accountability from agency heads for breaches and other adverse cyber events. The devil, as always, will be in the details, however. Are calls for accountability implemented in ways that actually change behavior, or merely create incentives for bureaucrats to “not get caught,” Farral wonders. Also in question: the Trump Administration’s enthusiasm for more aggressive cyber offense.

You can check out our full conversation below, or on The Security Ledger’s iTunes channel! And, as always, if you like our theme music, check out the song on Amazon and give some love to Joe-Less Shoe.