“Every day we see waves of cyber thieves trolling for sensitive information, the disgruntled employee on the inside, the lone hacker 1000 miles away, organized crime, industrial spy and increasingly foreign intelligence services.” (BBC)
In his speech addressing the nation’s cyber infrastructure this past May, President Obama emphasized the administration’s dedication to strengthening the nation’s cyber security. Our research found varying opinions on the provisions being taken to provide this security and whether America should engage in the same tactics it has become increasingly a victim of.
In a World Focus interview, a Business Week cyber security specialist emphasizes that the administration is focused on developing the technology to combat future attacks.
“The Obama administration right now is working on a cyber security initiative that involves the National Security Agency, it involves AT&T testing of a sophisticated system called Einstein – a way of monitoring traffic internationally and what comes into your country and trying to detect early exactly what’s happening.”
The Einstein program has been controversial since its conception in 2003. The software monitors and analyzes Internet traffic and content including emails. In July, The Wall Street Journal highlighted concerns about the latest version of the software…
“This version has raised bigger privacy issues because the technology has the ability to read the content of emails and other messages sent over government systems as it scans for attacks. Mr. Obama's transition team flagged Einstein 3 as a potential privacy concern.”
For many experts, what to do about offense is just as controversial as defense. In an interview with G4TV’s show The Loop, Director of USC’s Center for Computer Systems Security, B. Clifford Neuman takes a look at the flip side of the coin.
“There’s also the issue of a government taking part in these kind of activities when there isn’t a declared war and if you listen what’s been said by the military about these kind of activities they talk about this only being done in the event of an actual declared war. If there are other things going on, well you know, there’s plausible deniability as to whether the government is initiating these activities or are they cyber vigilantes.”
At a book discussion on FORA.TV, New York Times reporter David Sangar poses a hypothetical situation to explain how initiating unprovoked cyber warfare could be costly. What if U.S. cyber forces uncover Chinese viruses developed to attack American systems, he asks.
“Do you go in and try to mess up that computer code by attacking a set of computers in China. Well, under our preemption doctrine, if president Obama decided to continue it, we might but when you consider the fact that were more vulnerable to these kind of attacks than almost any other society on earth, it raises a question do you want to start down that road."
Some experts critical of engaging in cyber warfare claim that networks are too interconnected to focus an attack without civilian casualties. In a recent New York Times article, a senior scientist at the National Research Council had this to say.
"It's virtually certain that there will be unintended consequences…If you don't know what a computer you attack is doing, you could do something bad."
How should the government handle cyber attacks, and should it engage in cyber warfare?
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