Recently, I blogged about the various pieces of cybersecurity legislation being reviewed in Congress and, while the progress on legislation is important, it is not enough.  Howard Schmidt, the White House cybersecurity coordinator was quoted in Bloomberg saying, “[w]e believe information sharing, while important, does not stop the whole problem.”

Schmidt believes the Department of Homeland Security should have a role working with industry. And I think he is right: the best way to protect cyberspace is to ensure that  public and private partnerships are developed to combat the threat.

What is even more encouraging is that Schmidt is following through on his recommendations by asking his office to engage in a public-private partnership to address the growing threat of botnets.  This federally-led working group is joining forces to combat the threat of remote controlled computer networks designed to take over hundreds of thousands of systems and carry out malicious activities.

While botnets are not a new threat, they are persistent and continue to cause havoc.  The cybersecurity czar plans to address the threats posed by botnet by developing best practices and an industry code of conduct within three months according to Federal Computer Week.  The working groups will also strive to increase public awareness of the issue and measure progress of the initiative.

We applaud these efforts and will continue to update our readers on the progress being made as we join our industry peers in protecting against malicious activities on the network.