FCC CTO Focused on Role FCC Will Play in Network Security, Cyber
The FCC is still trying to figure out what role it will play in cybersecurity, but that could be limited for the most part to helping other agencies that have clearer oversight, Chief Technology Officer Eric Burger told an FCBA lunch audience Thursday. Burger said network security and reliability and robocalls were areas he highlighted when Chairman Ajit Pai interviewed him for the job. Early in his chairmanship, Pai rescinded two cybersecurity items issued under former Chairman Tom Wheeler -- a white paper on communications sector cybersecurity regulation and a notice of inquiry on cybersecurity for 5G devices (see 1702060059) -- and has steered the Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council away from its former focus on the topic.
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The Department of Homeland Security has a clear statutory role on cyber, Burger said. “It wasn’t clear what was in the remit of the FCC in this space,” he said. “What I’m looking at now is basically what can we do to help make things better.” The first question is what the FCC can do under its statutory authority, Burger said. Title I of the Communications Act is “really quite broad,” he said. “Pretty much any device that’s electronic already has an FCC label on it,” he said. “Are there things we could be doing to help the industry be aware of things that go in devices that could harm the network?”
The agency also needs to ask if whatever it might do on cyber makes sense for it as an agency and for industry, Burger said. “There may be some areas like information sharing that maybe we do have statutory authority,” he said. “But, really, DHS and the Computer Emergency Response Team, they’ve got lots of people, they’ve got lots and lots of processes, they’ve figured how to make stuff work. It still doesn’t necessarily make sense for the FCC to get into that business.”
The question the FCC must ask is, “Can we do it?” Burger said. If the commission wants to take on something that would require hiring 150 engineers, “I pretty much know what the chairman is going to say to that because I know what the Hill is going to say to that,” Burger said.
Burger said the wireless industry is starting to turn a corner on illegal robocalls, a major focus of the FCC under Pai. The robocall blocking report and order approved by commissioners in November ( see 1711160054) gave carriers new tools, allowing them to block “obviously bad calls,” Burger said. The order allows blocking calls from numbers on a do-not-originate list and those that purport to be from invalid, unallocated or unused numbers.
“In a sense, [the order] is groundbreaking because carriers were basically saying, ‘Yeah, you’re complaining about us completing calls but we can’t not complete a call. It’s very clear under the Communications Act,’” Burger said. “If you’re Democratic leaning, we’re enabling carriers to block calls. If you’re Republican-leaning, we’re getting rid of regulation that’s in the way.”
Burger was asked whether the CTO will be part of the new Office of Economics and Analytics approved 3-2 by commissioners last week, since the Office of Strategic Planning where he works is being folded into OEA. “I have literally no idea,” he said, noting his term expires at the end of the fiscal year, though he could be reappointed. “I have relished being around all these economists,” he said. “We eat lunch [together] almost every day.” Burger is a computer science professor at Georgetown University.