How Do You Create US Cyber Guidelines for Foreign Firms?

Fitting foreign companies critical to U.S. society into a domestic cybersecurity framework will be tricky, said a U.S. pharmaceutical executive helping to form the guidelines.

On April 3, government and industry leaders met for the first time to try hammering out voluntary security standards for private sector networks. A policy is due by November, under a Feb. 12 cyber executive order covering "critical infrastructure" American sectors that sustain economic and national security. "What happens if we have a non-U.S. company operating critical infrastructure," questioned Terry Rice, Merck chief information security officer, who also has experience consulting critical infrastructure defense contractors. There is no answer yet as to how the guidelines will apply to those organizations, he said.