Cyber trust label could be in place by end of the year, White House says

The Biden administration hopes to have consumer devices that have been approved by a voluntary cybersecurity labeling program on store shelves by the end of the year, a senior White House official said on Wednesday.

The Federal Communications Commission earlier this year voted unanimously to approve the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark program to both help consumers understand the security of everyday household items, like baby monitors and remote thermostats, and to incentivize manufacturers to include baseline digital defenses that could separate them from the rest of the market.

“It's going through some of the legal process and our goal is to have labeled devices in stores and online by the end of the year,” Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, said at a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington.

She said a “large swath of companies have already signed up to submit their products to be tested” by accredited labs.

“We want people shopping, whether for their homes or schools or offices, to be able to buy secure devices,” Neuberger told the audience. “We want to drive down the level of threat … by having those devices be defensible. But they're not today.”

She noted that the federal government, one of the world’s largest tech buyers, is poised to “prime the pump” and “use the power of money” to signal to manufacturers, once their connected devices have undergone certification, to “make clear that we’re waiting at the end as a large market.”