OPINION:
With the arrival of Cyber Monday, a substantial part of holiday Internet sales — and the hopes of legions of retailers — ride on the seamless function of the complex network crucial for online commerce. This invites a successful cyberattack on the nation’s vital communications infrastructure and has the potential to deal incalculable harm to the nation. The greater the nation’s electronic grid, the more urgent the need to insulate these information systems from disruption. Every day must be cybersecurity day.
Millions of shoppers descended on the malls the day after Thanksgiving, eager to find discounts and Black Friday savings at favorite shops and stores, and millions more are expected to scour the Web on Cyber Monday in search of deals offered only online. Cyber Monday sales hit a record in 2013 at $2.3 billion, and sales are likely to exceed that figure this year.
Skilled computer hackers love Cyber Monday, and sneaky business spikes on this day. The costs of cyber-intrusions are staggering, reaching upward of $100 billion annually. Federal agents informed more than 3,000 private companies in 2013 that their computer systems had been hacked. Security breaches at such retailers as Target, Home Depot and Neiman Marcus have resulted in the theft of credit card and personal data of tens of millions of Americans. The average cost to financial services companies from a single successful cyber-attack is nearly $21 million, according to a study by the Heritage Foundation.
Beyond the danger of commercial loss lies the threat to national security by cyberwarfare. Given that every bully dreams of dethroning the king of the hill, there is no shortage of hackers across the globe — often working at the behest of hostile foreign governments — attempting to wreak havoc on the inner workings of world’s premier superpower, the United States.
Adm. Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency and commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, made a surprisingly frank admission to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, warning that a major attack on critical networks by 2025 isn’t simply a possibility, it’s a likelihood. “We see multiple nation-states and in some cases individuals and groups that have the capabilities to engage in this behavior,” he said. “It’s only a matter of the ’when,’ not the ’if,’ that we are going to see something dramatic.”
Although Adm. Rogers worded his testimony to tiptoe around a clear identification of culprit nations, China and Russia are two that have the means of electronic mayhem and a history of intruding into U. S. defense networks. Additionally, Iran is thought to be developing cyber-attack capabilities following the disruption and destruction of many of its nuclear centrifuges by the Stuxnet computer virus in 2010.
The Heritage study found 23 publicly undisclosed penetrations of federal computer systems by outside hackers. Among the agencies victimized in recent months are the White House, the State Department, the U.S. Postal Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to a report by this newspaper’s Kellan Howell.
Mischief with weather forecasts can be a major headache for travelers, even though most Americans take temperature and precipitation predictions with a grain or two of salt. It’s the potential for foreign intruders performing acts of sabotage, such as turning off portions of the nation’s electrical grid, shutting down cooling systems in nuclear power plants or blacking out air traffic control systems, that keep the guardians awake at night.
Security no longer means tough men with guns on the perimeter peering into the black of night, but computer experts watching the nation’s commercial and defense control panels with unblinking gaze for the first sign of cyber-intrusion. The nation’s well-being depends on their vigilance.
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