Many see the strategy as a sign of the administration's willingness to recognize cyber threats as a national security issue. But until details are fleshed out, it's hard to know just how far it will go in bolstering the nation's ability to deal with cyber attacks, they said.

At a White House briefing, Obama described a five-pronged cybersecurity strategy for defending government, military and private sector networks against threats from what he said is a growing number of bad actors. He noted that the new cybersecurity coordinator will be responsible for pulling together a national strategy for securing American interests in cyberspace and stressed that the government would safeguard privacy concerns. (The new office will include a privacy officer.)

Obama's proposals had been widely expected and are based on the recommendations from a government-wide review of cybersecurity undertaken at his behest by , a former Bush administration aide who he appointed as acting senior director for cyberspace earlier this year.

"I was encouraged see that the [Hathaway] report got presidential support today -- that's critical to the success of any program," said Patricia Titus, the one-time chief information security officer at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) who now holds a similar job at Unisys Corp.

The challenge for the Obama Administration is to actually implement the proposals in a meaningful way, Titus said. A lot will depend on the relationships the new cybersecurity coordinator can build and the kind of influence he or she can exert across government and the private sector, she said.