The U.S. framework of cybersecurity standards is at the heart of a new book on "cybersecurity for business executives" published by the Japanese telecom firm NTT, providing a boost for the framework overseas and potentially strengthening collaboration on cyber issues between industries in the United States and Japan.
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone embraced the National Institute of Standards and Technology's framework early on, and has embarked on related campaigns to promote international alignment on cyber, use of the framework's principles as the basis of Japan's own cyber strategy, and to market cybersecurity services rooted in the framework.
The company intends to submit comments in the NIST request for information on the framework and participated in the framework workshops in 2013 and 2014. Andy Ozment, a senior cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security, delivered a presentation at NTT's Tokyo headquarters last November.
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'The Editor Reports' is a new feature from Inside Cybersecurity intended to identify themes emerging from our news coverage and pose questions about the direction of evolving cybersecurity policies. Email comments to cmitchell@iwpnews.com.
Shinichi Yokohama, who leads the cybersecurity integration program at NTT, was in the United States last week to meet with government and private-sector cyber policymakers, and discussed his activities with Inside Cybersecurity.
Yokohama was the lead author of the book, which is available in bookstores in Japan. He provided Inside Cybersecurity with a preliminary English translation.
"A key message of the book is the need for international alignment with the NIST framework as a basis," Yokohama explained. "We would like to create alignment between the U.S. and Japan first, and possibly build out from there."
That message is resonating with U.S. industry stakeholders as well. "The more we can collectively orient the different strands of cybersecurity policymaking to the framework the better," Information Technology Industry Council vice president John Miller said last week when discussing an industry initiative here.
NTT is reaching out to government officials and critical-infrastructure operators in Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore, Yokohama said, and in 20 16 intends to further the outreach in those markets.
The company is also participating in the U.S. sector coordinating council for telecommunications, and looking to the U.S. information sharing and analysis centers for insights on how to strengthen the communications ISAC in Japan. The telecom ISAC is one of only two in that country, the other serving the financial services sector.
NTT spearheaded the launch last year of a cross-sector forum in Japan that includes over 40 major corporations and provides a "voluntary venue" to discuss cyber best practices and workforce development.
Yokohama noted that a top NTT executive spoke at a December meeting of the U.S.-Japan Business Council in Washington, DC, and pointed out that the two countries account for 60 percent of global spending on cybersecurity. "He said let's work together at the business level," Yokohama said. "The design of that collaboration is yet to be seen."
During last week's visit with officials from NIST and other agencies, Yokohama said, "We got the sense that there are expectations that there should be more emphasis on international alignment. That's the key take-away from this visit -- the need for more alignment among the U.S., Japan and Europe."
Yokohama acknowledged: "This is not yet even a work in progress. It's a work that needs to begin." -- Charlie Mitchell, editor, Inside Cybersecurity