Government Push For Cybersecurity Highlights Growing Demand

On Tuesday, the Obama administration announced plans to ramp up the government’s cybersecurity program by creating a new division that will evaluate intelligence data from several different sources in order to thwart attacks. The Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency will send their information to the newly created Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center, which will spearhead the administration’s push toward monitoring and avoiding cyber threats.

Obama Responds To Hackers

The White House’s calls for tougher cybersecurity come just weeks after ISIS supporters temporarily took over the government’s Twitter feed and several high profile private companies suffered hacking attacks. For tech companies whose main focus has been on developing better technology to fight back against hackers, this announcement was welcome news.

Cybersecurity A Growing Field

Big name tech companies like Microsoft Corporation MSFT and International Business machines Corp IBM have already begun to shift some of their focus toward security in order to keep up with growing demand. Cybersecurity firms Fortinet Inc. FTNT and Vasco Data Security International VDSI have seen their share prices rise by 30 and 60 percent respectively as private firms shell out big bucks for top of the line protection.

Privacy A Concern

However the push toward heightened internet security, especially within the  government, isn’t good news for all. The CTIIC has called on private firms to share more of their information with the government in order to help the agency better detect growing threats; but some say this could infringe on privacy rights. Companies like Google Inc. GOOG and Facebook Inc. FB are already renowned for their data collection abilities, but sharing that information with government agencies could cause mistrust among international users.