The ranking comes from the National Security Cyberspace Institute, which graded recommendations contained in the White House 60-day Cyberspace Policy Review or the so-called Hathaway Report. The recommendations are broken down into two categories - Near-Term and Mid-Term.

Institute officials say - now that the administration is over halfway through their elected term, they've had enough time to expect some progress on their near-term goals.

Among the grades they get:

• A "D" for taking almost a year-and-a-half to appoint a cybersecurity policy official.

• Another "D" for not completing an update to the national strategy to secure the information and communications infrastructure.

• A "B" for the establishment of performance metrics.

• The White House did appoint a privacy and civil liberties official to the cybersecurity directorate. But the administration got a "C" from the Institute because that official remains anonymous.

This story is part of Federal News Radio's daily Cybersecurity Update brought to you by Tripwire. For more cybersecurity news, click here.