FACT SHEET: Executive Order Promoting Private Sector Cybersecurity Information Sharing

President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order to encourage and promote sharing of cybersecurity threat information within the private sector and between the private sector and government. This Executive Order lays out a framework for expanded information sharing designed to help companies work together, and work with the federal government, to quickly identify and protect against cyber threats.

• Encouraging Private-Sector Cybersecurity Collaboration:
  • Encourage the development of Information Sharing Organizations
  • Develop a common set of voluntary standards for information sharing organizations
• Enabling Better Public-Private Information Sharing:
  • Clarify the Department of Homeland Security's authority to enter into agreements with information sharing organizations
  • Streamline private sector companies' ability to access classified cybersecurity threat information
• Providing Strong Privacy and Civil Liberties Protections: The Executive Order ensures that information sharing enabled by this new framework will include strong protections for privacy and civil liberties. Private sector Information Sharing and Analysis Organizations (ISAO) will agree to abide by a common set of voluntary standards, which will include privacy protections, such as minimization, for ISAO operation and ISAO member participation.
• Paving the Way for Future Legislation: The Executive Order also complements the Administration’s January 2015 legislative proposal, and paves the way for new legislation, by building out the concept of ISAOs as a framework for the targeted liability protections that the Administration has long asserted are pivotal to incentivizing and expanding information sharing.