US Government issues draft report on action against botnets

The US Department of Commerce and the Department of Homeland Security have released a draft report on ‘Enhancing the Resilience of the Internet and Communications Ecosystem Against Botnets and Other Automated, Distributed Threats‘. The report comes in response to President Trump’s Executive Order on Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure (from May 2017). It looks at challenges and opportunities in reducing the botnet threats that ‘capitalise on the sheer number of Internet of Things devices’, with goals related to a more secure technology marketplace, innovations in network infrastructure and applications, coalitions among security and technical communities on national and international level, and awareness and education. It outlines several recommendations, such as: establish broadly accepted baseline security profiles for IoT devices in home and industrial applications, and promote international adoption through bilateral arrangements and the use of international standards including IPv6 implementation; more efforts from the industry to develop innovative solutions for preventing and mitigating distributed threats; collaboration between government and industry to ensure existing best practices, frameworks, and guidelines relevant to IoT are more widely adopted; and promoting the international adoption of best practices and relevant tools through bilateral and multilateral international engagement efforts. The report is open for public comment until mid February 2018.