Less than a month before Election Day, President Obama signed a secret directive that clarifies what types of actions the military is allowed to take to protect the nation from cyber threats,
the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Called “Presidential Policy Directive 20,” the directive is an update to a 2004 directive issued by then President Bush. The new version “explicitly makes a distinction between network defense and cyber operations,” that is, attacks or offensive actions, a first for the government, according to The Post, which proceeds to outline just how the new directive might work in practice:
An example of a defensive cyber operation that once would have been considered an offensive act, for instance, might include stopping a computer attack by severing the link between an overseas server and a targeted domestic computer.
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