With the country’s utility, security, and financial systems all vulnerable to cyberattacks, security experts are telling Congress that increased government oversight is necessary to insure the nation’s cybersecurity.
According to the Associated Press,
U.S. computer networks — from the Defense Department to small companies — are scanned and probed millions of times a day. The assaults range from small time hackers looking to steal credit card data to nation states and terror groups aimed at espionage or disrupting vital computer systems….
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the [Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee], said the government must work with the private sector, because neither can do it alone. He noted that private industry owns or controls roughly 85 percent of computer networks, and said companies meeting with the committee have balked at greater government control.
Automated factory systems are increasingly turning to ethernet and IP-enabled networks for industrial device control and monitoring, but this level of connectivity comes at a cost. With cyber attacks on the rise, the need for integrated security is greater than ever before.
Until recently, government employees were rarely issued mobile devices like mobile internet devices or Blackberry’s, usually because of the perceived security problem. That’s changing, and fast. More and more often, government IT departments have decided “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” and are rapidly outfitting their employees with commercial off-the-shelf mobile communications devices. These consumer devices, previously only issued to the highest-level government employees, are now much more likely to be found in the hands of the rank-and-file. That has dramatically expanded the government’s mobile device population (and its over-the-air data traffic), leading some experts to worry that sensitive government communications are becoming less, not more, secure.
