Waging a Cyber Threat

The unprecedented proliferation of the internet in the last two decades has surfaced concerns about the security of our wireless network. Favorably and unfavorably, our ability to transmit information has grown at a faster rate than our ability to protect that same information. In other words, top secret data and your marital status on Facebook still travel through the same wireless pipeline. This fact alone is reason enough for a serious reevaluation of our country’s cybersecurity standards. Cybersecurity needs to be on par with the top priorities for America as an integrated component to our national defense and standards in infrastructure.

Officials in the government community have been lobbying for a greater focus on wireless security since shortly after the internet’s inception in the early 1990s. Long before the internet had evolved into the media networks of Facebook, Google, and YouTube, a man named Mike McConnell deliberated over the potential consequences of such a tool. As the former head of the National Security Agency (NSA), Mike McConnell has been the leader in this initiative to steer efforts towards protecting America’s information, channeled through the “glass pipe” as he refers to it. His personal pledge to boost awareness over the last decade has not fallen on deaf ears either. The United States Department of Labor projects 286,000 new jobs in computer network, systems, and database administrators over the 2008-2018 decade. While an essential step forward, job growth alone will not provide for the robust cyber defense system our country needs. Better yet, the American public needs to know the severity of the threat that exists.

Terrorist attacks such as 9/11 have familiarized Americans as to how vulnerable our country is to immense devastation. However witnessing the weight of repercussions caused from a cyber attack on our daily public infrastructure is an experience we have auspiciously avoided; and we should keep it that way. A review of September 11, 2001, provides a valuable example of poor positioning. Lessons learned from that fateful time reveal the United States’ inadequate preparation for a strike on our own turf. Right now, before we are attacked, is when we hold the advantage to make preemptive efforts. Immediate implementation of cybersecurity standards for our public infrastructure is paramount to a sustainable future. Otherwise we may find ourselves cornered once again, leaving us with no choice but to make haphazard decisions to preemptively strike after we have already been attacked (if that makes sense).

Fortunately officials like McConnell have laid the groundwork for cybersecurity measures to be more closely analyzed. According to Grant Gross, a writer for the IT business news publication Techworld, an umbrella like cybersecurity bill was approved by the U.S. Senate committee on June 25th. This bill includes diction granting “kill switch” authority to the President which would include the capability of shutting down parts of the Internet during an attack. Outlined cybersecurity standards for institutions to implement using deadlines to expedite the process are also included in the bill. With the imminent threat of cyber warfare, a bill with such provisions is imperative to our country’s future.

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