Obama official says U.S. faces 'grave national cyber security challenge
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In the murky world of computer espionage, the United States faces hard choices on how to retaliate when government or privately owned networks come under cyber attack, senior military and intelligence officials said Tuesday.
As the administration grapples with how best to defend its computer networks, debate is raging over how far the United States can go in pursuit of cybercriminals, and even what constitutes a digital act of war.
The most immediate challenge is to identify the hacker, terrorist or enemy nation that launched the attack in vast and anonymous cyberspace, officials said.
That hurdle is complicated by privacy debates over how deeply the government can wade into privately owned systems to investigate threats, and how it should handle attacks against a company, as opposed to a federal agency.
U.S. law allows "hot pursuit" of criminals, said former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, so computer users "may have to tolerate some hot pursuit" through their digital world so authorities can track and ultimately respond to cybercrimes.
Speaking to a crowd of corporate and government technology experts at a conference sponsored by Defense Daily, Wynne and others painted a grim picture of the country's cybersecurity.
"In the face of our almost universal reliance on untrusted systems, the United States currently is facing a grave national security challenge in the form of exploitation of our government and private-sector networks and information," said Steven Chabinsky, assistant deputy director of cyber-issues for the Obama administration's director of national intelligence. "This exploitation is occurring on an unprecedented scale by a growing array of state and nonstate actors."
As the administration grapples with how best to defend its computer networks, debate is raging over how far the United States can go in pursuit of cybercriminals, and even what constitutes a digital act of war.
The most immediate challenge is to identify the hacker, terrorist or enemy nation that launched the attack in vast and anonymous cyberspace, officials said.
That hurdle is complicated by privacy debates over how deeply the government can wade into privately owned systems to investigate threats, and how it should handle attacks against a company, as opposed to a federal agency.
U.S. law allows "hot pursuit" of criminals, said former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne, so computer users "may have to tolerate some hot pursuit" through their digital world so authorities can track and ultimately respond to cybercrimes.
Speaking to a crowd of corporate and government technology experts at a conference sponsored by Defense Daily, Wynne and others painted a grim picture of the country's cybersecurity.
"In the face of our almost universal reliance on untrusted systems, the United States currently is facing a grave national security challenge in the form of exploitation of our government and private-sector networks and information," said Steven Chabinsky, assistant deputy director of cyber-issues for the Obama administration's director of national intelligence. "This exploitation is occurring on an unprecedented scale by a growing array of state and nonstate actors."
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