The White House has already indicated that it is considering the use of an to protect critical networks if Congress fails to pass broadly acceptable cybersecurity legislation in a timely manner. The timing of such an action remains unclear.

Jaikumar Vijayan covers data security and privacy issues, financial services security and e-voting for Computerworld. Follow Jaikumar on Twitter at or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .

See .

in Computerworld's Cyberwarfare Topic Center.