Obama Focused On Better Cyber Security Plan

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» 29 May 2009

Obama Focused On Better Cyber Security Plan

Protecting military and government intelligence contained within the nation's digital databases has become a top priority because of the back-to-back cyber attacks on the U.S.'s computer networks. Therefore, Barack Obama decided to appoint a White House cyber coordinator to handle the problem. He had already promised to do so even during his presidential campaign.

President Obama is also prepared to issue a 40-page report that's likely to outline a scheme for the harmonization and synchronization of all the White House's cyber security endeavors. Despite a certain Chinese Internet scientist's protests to the contrary, many foreign and government firms really are covertly stealing American military secrets, classified documents and reports, intellectual property (IP) and technology from U.S. businesses, and so on via Internet hack attacks.

Michael McCaul, the Republican Representative of Texas who played a part in the recent CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) cyber security review, remarks that America's Internet safety troubles reach across the government itself. He reveals that nearly every federal agency has been breached by hackers and a substantial amount of information has been stolen from the government. Air traffic networks, NASA, and even the Pentagon have all been targets of theses unknown, unseen virtual terrorists.

According to James Lewis, a member of the CSIS, the hackers who were able to breach into the networks of U.S. government and military installations aren't "mom-and-pop operations" or "little kids". He contends that these cyber criminals at large are the 21st century's equivalent of undercover agents and spies that have so far been very successful in their digital craft.

He adds that any firm or corporation, law enforcement department, city, or government security agency will have a very, very difficult time in dealing with such "sophisticated opponents". Only a collaboration of all of these groups on a national level can stop these new age online outlaws from getting away with their cyber crimes.

Lewis also notes that the American power grid is specifically susceptible to the whiles of these Internet felons, pointing out that the blackout six years ago was quite troublesome despite the fact that it wasn't caused by any virtual or real terrorists.

He alleges that unless American cyber security is reinforced and hackers are stopped from their ongoing hacking spree, the 2003 Northeast American blackout is bound to happen again. That's because at least three or four countries have the ability of making the U.S. suffer a similar blackout via their hacking into security networks controlling the power grid.