The US Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice today released their “Antitrust Policy Statement on Sharing of Cybersecurity Information”. This statement is a positive event that helps the private sector improve the protection of the global digital infrastructure.
Intel views security as one of the three pillars of computing along with power-efficient performance and connectivity. Individuals must be able to trust their use of digital devices. Security and privacy are essential to creating an environment of trust. Intel has invested billions of dollars to develop hardware, software, services and integrated solutions that advance cyber security, and has integrated privacy into our development processes. During the past year, we announced the creation of the Intel Security Group -- a business unit whose mission is to increase the protections available to organizations and individuals. Recent news reports of threats and breaches demonstrate the importance of this investment and effort.
Information sharing is a foundational component to improve cybersecurity. Increasing the voluntary sharing of this information, while implementing appropriate privacy safeguards, is an important step to protect individuals from malicious software and cyber criminals. Efforts to remove unnecessary barriers to legitimate and appropriate sharing are a welcome and well-directed use of government resources. Among these barriers is the concern that industry sharing of cyber threat information for the purpose of improving cyber security could be misinterpreted by antitrust regulators as an effort to restrict competition.
Intel commends the FTC and the Department of Justice for clearly and publicly stating that “properly designed sharing of cyber threat information should not raise antitrust concerns.”
