to Sawer (2010) "the whole question of cyber security is shooting up everybody's agendas." (p. 2)
NATO and the United States communication networks are constantly being attacked, Anders Fogh Rasmussen Secretary General of NATO states, "It's no exaggeration to say that cyber attacks have become a new form of permanent, low-level warfare". NATO is of particular concern since they receive hundreds of attacks daily. Some computer have been deemed to "important" to be shut off for security work to be completed. I feel that NATO should have redundant computer systems so one can be maintained as the other is working.
The Obama administration plans to begin to counter these attacks with a new command, the Pentagon Cyber Command. The Pentagon Cyber Command began operating in October of 2010 however the largest problem seems that other agencies within the United States government have done little to fend off cyber attacks. The Obama administration is considering whether or not the new Command will play a larger role in the defense of network here in the United States. Some feel that Al-Qaida will soon exploit information about the NATO and United States networks obtained from rogue states. This problem could be on the scale of another 9/11 if terrorists obtain this information. The terrorist would possibly be able to mount an attack on the banking system, electrical grid and any other network they feel may distrupt or kill Americans. I feel that it is time for the government to create a new department that overseas the government’s ability to fight off a cyber attack, and this new agency should be headed by a cabinet level officer.
Fidler, S., Gorman, S., (2010, Sep 25). Cyber Attacks test Pentagon, Allies and Foes. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703793804575511961264943300.html?KEYWORDS=Cyber+Attacks+test+Pentagon+Allies+and+Foes
1 comment:
Yvonne,
The article I read said nothing about Wikileaks. The article just mentioned the new command as being a command that would oversee the security of government computers. I read an article a couple years back that said some government computers had no password at all, using default passwords or passwords that were very simple to guess. I think that this new command that is being proposed just will deal with those sorts of security issues, open ports on routers and so on. As far as Wikileaks goes I had heard recently that thumb drives and other writeable media has been banned in certain government areas. I have a friend who is a DOD civilian working for the Navy and he can't even have a cell phone with a camera at work.
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