Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Blog 12: Global Cyber Arms Race Engulfing Web - Defense Official

Cyber experts from across the U.S. government, speaking at a conference at Georgetown University, said organized crime, espionage and security activity on the Internet pose a rising threat to U.S. intellectual property, military superiority and critical infrastructure. "What we're looking at is a global cyber arms race," said Rear Admiral Samuel Cox, director of intelligence at U.S. Cyber Command, which was set up 18 months ago to protect Pentagon computer networks and conduct offensive cyber operations if the president orders them. "It's not proceeding at a leisurely or even a linear fashion but in fact is accelerating. I wouldn't claim that it's following Moore's law, but the curve looks kind of similar," he said, referring to a computer industry rule of thumb that computer processing power doubles every couple of years. Howard Schmidt, cyber security coordinator at the White House, said more than $8 trillion worth of transactions were carried over wired and wireless networks each year. "This is not just a national security issue," he told the conference. "It's a national security, public safety as well as economic." Officials said the most effective way to counter the threat is to adopt an approach that promotes collaboration among government agencies and reaches out to private industry as well as international partners. I believe that this is an excellent plan.  It is important when tackling such a large issue to collaborate with other institutions.   I believe that without the help of these other institutions, it is not possible to grasp how often problems are occurring and where these problems are occurring.  It is definitely something that needs to be taken care of, because cyber crime is a huge form of organized crime, costing millions of dollars each year.  This is something that needs to be taken care of and the best way to do it is most definitely collaborating with other institutions and sharing the different discoveries each has made.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/11/net-us-usa-defense-cyber-idUSBRE83A00520120411

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