The main theme of the current news item is that cyber attacks against the U.S. critical infrastructure, many of which were predicted ten years ago in another 60-minutes piece, have already happened. According to former State Department official Jim Lewis, who is currently director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a major series of attacks have already succeeded. They were against the Departments of Defense, State, and Commerce and probably the Department of Energy and NASA. The result was the theft of terabytes of sensitive data, which were stolen by an unknown foreign group.
Lewis also headed the drafting of a report “Securing Cyberspace for the 44th President,” which was released on December 8, 2008. I commented on a pre-release draft of the report in my bloginfosec.com column “Cyber Security Advice for No. 44,” which was posted on December 1, 2008. My contention was that the focus of the report was too much on where the Cyber Czar, now known as the Cyber Coordinator, should reside. As it turned out, the growing argument as to the role and responsibilities of such a person appears to have stymied the entire effort for half a year at least. Why not just add cyber security to Aneesh Chopra’s portfolio (as White House CTO, he is already taking a strong interest in such issues) and have one of the agencies with actual resources at hand take on the job of fixing the problem? I have heard and met with Mr. Chopra several times and believe that he could effectively socialize the issues and get private sector support. However, the research and operational agencies of government should, in my view, actually do the job.
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