White House Reveals Cybersecurity Plan

A look at the week of May 16 in public advocacy for the IT channel

This week, the Administration unveiled a proposal for cybersecurity in the U.S.  Although health insurers are losing profit to federal reforms, healthcare IT might present an opportunity to recoup some losses.  Some senators are urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to require companies to disclose when they have been victims of cyberattacks. 

White House Reveals Cybersecurity Plan — The White House unveiled a long-delayed legislative proposal for cybersecurity that, among other things, calls on industries critical to the nation’s economy and security to create plans — vetted by the government — for securing their computer systems. At the same time, the proposal places penalties on companies that fail to scrub personal identifying information from certain data shared with the government, says Washington Post.

Insurers Chase Health IT Profits — Healthcare insurers increasingly are diversifying into the growing healthcare IT business to counter anticipated profit losses from their core business, says Nextgov.com.  A report by The Wall Street Journal says that while insurance profit margins are expected to drop 2 to 5 percent due to the implementation of federal healthcare reforms,  the healthcare IT business has lower overhead than the insurance business has, earning one diversified insurer margins of more than 20 percent on its healthcare IT offerings.

Senate Dems Ask SEC To Require Firms To Disclose Cyberattacks —Three weeks after a hacker attack on Sony brought down two online gaming networks and imperiled the personal data of more than 100 million consumers worldwide, Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and several colleagues wrote to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Schapiro arguing that firms should be forced to disclose cyber-attacks that could affect earnings or give competitors' a leg-up in the marketplace, reports The Hill.