Internet Security Alliance’s message to President-Elect Obama
“Our physical security is threatened by vulnerabilities in our electronic information systems.”
Plus of course, approximately $3 trillion moves through those electronic systems per day. That’s the message from the ISA’s Policy Recommendations for the Obama Administration, unveiled in Washington, DC, on Nov. 18, which call for a “cyber security social contract,” on the model of the “enlightened and pragmatic” deal between government and the utilities in the early 20th century to bring universal phone, power and light service to America. “That model worked,” according to the ISA, which calls for Obama to embrace a new social contract “wherein government provides incentives for the private sector to make cyber security investments that are not justified by current business plans.”
With those kinds of investments, and “by following identifiable security practices, between 80 and 90% of attacks can be thwarted,” says the ISA.
The ISA report addresses cyber security in several specific arenas, including banking and finance, communications and education, and asks “if you had 5 minutes to discuss cyber security with President Obama what would you tell him?” In the area of national defense, these are some of the ISA’s answers:
“The US is facing a severe national security challenge from a pervasive, deep penetration of government and private industry information networks by foreign intelligence and organized criminal entities. These efforts have the potential to erode the nation’s position as a world leader in S&T innovation and competitiveness.
“The return on present investment for targeting sensitive US information in this way is extraordinarily high and the barriers to entry extraordinarily low.
“Cyber-based operations are the new intelligence battle space of the 21st century and we are currently ill-prepared to defend ourselves. US infrastructure and information networks remain virtually wide open to the sophisticated attacker, be they state sponsored intelligence or purely criminal in mission.
“We can't control the Internet, it is woven too deeply into the international fabric and is too unstructured. The entrepreneurial spirit that drives the Internet allows good ideas to bubble up and circulate immediately; however, the same is true for bad ideas. This dynamic creates significant background noise in the world of emerging technology and innovation.
“Cyber security is not a problem that we “solve” but rather, like Cold War-era intelligence threats, is a risk to be managed by a combination of generational leaps in defensive technology, paradigmatic shifts in analytic approach combined with strong diplomatic and economic policy initiatives abroad. These efforts, operating in tandem, can ensure that the United States counters this existential threat to our S&T competitiveness while safeguarding long term national security.”
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