http://www.networkworld.com/article/2363025/security/fcc-will-push-network-providers-on-cybersecurity-wheeler-says.html By Grant Gross IDG News Service June 12, 2014 The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is threatening to step in with regulations if network providers don’t improve cybersecurity. The FCC will take steps to encourage cybersecurity in the coming months, acting first as a promotor of company-led initiatives instead of a regulator, in keeping with its congressionally defined mission to promote the national defense and public safety, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said. But if that doesn’t lead to improvements, the agency is prepared to act. “The challenge is that this private sector-led effort must be more dynamic than traditional regulation and more measurably effective than blindly trusting the market or voluntary best practices to defend our country,” Wheeler said during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. “We believe there is a new regulatory paradigm where the commission relies on industry and the market first while preserving other options if that approach is unsuccessful.” Echoing the current debate over the FCC’s authority to enforce net neutrality rules, Wheeler promised that the agency will push network operators to improve cybersecurity even as those companies move more of their traffic from the more heavily regulated analog telephone network to more lightly regulated Internet Protocol-based networks. […]