The White House's top cybersecurity official last week confirmed what experts had been speculating since President Obama issued an executive order for shoring up the security of critical infrastructure earlier this month: the order lays the groundwork for still-needed cybersecurity legislation.

"The executive order is really a down payment -- a down payment on a lot of the hard work that's [been done]," Michael Daniel, special assistant to the President and cybersecurity coordinator, told attendees during a special White House forum session on the executive order at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. "There are things the executive order can't do, such as direct agencies to do things they don't already have [the authority] to do in the first place.

"We definitely need Congress to act and update our laws so we can see progress in cybersecurity," he said.