Computer network security is too important to be left to the techies, says TechNet, an organization of CEOs of technology companies. TechNet is urging CEOs to conduct their own evaluation of their company’s security.

The organization has created an evaluation tool, available at http://www.technet.org/cybersecurity/eval/. It says the evaluation is designed to be carried out by the CEO and his top technical people and will take about 90 minutes.

“It’s high time for cyber security to become a CEO-level concern. We hope that CEOs nationwide agree with us,” said Rick White, president and CEO of TechNet. The group challenges CEOs to use the evaluation and to improve their company’s information security posture by National Cyber Security Day, April 4, 2004.

TechNet says the survey is a self- scoring questionnaire designed to help executives evaluate their information security program and to identify specific areas that need improvement. “The process of going through the evaluation is just as important as the scoring and rating results,” it says.

The evaluation addresses four key issues in cyber security management: risk management evaluation, people evaluation, processes evaluation and technology evaluation. A business dependency section helps CEOs determine whether their company has a high, medium or low reliance on information technology for business continuity.

The initiative comes as high-tech industries are working to head off government regulation of cyber security. At a business conference in Santa Clara, CA, Dec. 3, officials of the Homeland Security Department bluntly told the industry to improve network security voluntarily or they may face federal mandates. They cited the potential for damage by hackers and terrorists to critical networks that operate the nation’s physical and financial infrastructure.

The Washington Post quoted Robert Liscouski, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection: “We are not going to let anybody who operates in this space dodge their responsibility. We want to see results.”