The security industry mostly had good reviews of the president's policy announcement.

"It is gratifying to see the Obama Administration re-establish a strong White House presence for cyber security issues," Enrique Salem, president and CEO of Symantec, the owner of SecurityFocus, said in a statement. "In the six years since cyber security oversight and involvement was moved from the White House to other government agencies, the attacks have grown on an organized basis and have continued to intensify to the point where they are now a full-blown threat to national security and commerce."

Yet, others criticized the lack of detail in the announcement, particularly in how to improve the national response to cyber attacks.

"President Obama commented on information sharing on the what the cyber threat is, unfortunately there is not enough focus on where the threat is coming from, nor reducing the response time to those threats," Chris Schwartzbauer, senior vice president at Shavlik Technologies, said in a statement sent to SecurityFocus. "And the more information we get about where threats are coming from will help us better defend against them."

Schwartzbauer pointed to the Conficker virus as a good example of the shortcomings of the nation's response to threats. The private sector and the government were slow to share information on the worm, which infected millions of computers worldwide. Moreover, the success of the worm highlighted the lack of dedication to patching, he said.

President Obama underscored that creating a cybersecurity policy and improving network security will not be done in a year or even completed during his presidency.

"The task I described will not be easy," the president said. "Some 1.5 billion people around the world are already online, and more are logging on every day. Groups and governments are sharpening their cyber capabilities. Protection our prosperity and security in this globalized world is going to be a long, difficult struggle demanding patience and persistence over many years."

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