Cyber Assault in the United States

“In this interconnected, digital world, there are going to be opportunities for hackers to engage in cyber assaults both in the private sector and the public sector. Now, our first order of business is making sure that we do everything to harden sites and prevent those kinds of attacks from taking place…But even as we get better, the hackers are going to get better, too. Some of them are going to be state actors; some of them are going to be non-state actors. All of them are going to be sophisticated and many of them can do some damage.

This is part of the reason why it’s going to be so important for Congress to work with us and get an actual bill passed that allows for the kind of information-sharing we need. Because if we don’t put in place the kind of architecture that can prevent these attacks from taking place, this is not just going to be affecting movies, this is going to be affecting our entire economy in ways that are extraordinarily significant.” (President Obama, December 19, 2014).

Public and private networks are facing an unprecedented threat from rogue hackers as well as organized crime and even state actors.

The Obama Administration issued the Cyberspace Policy Review — the first top-to-bottom, Administration-wide review of cybersecurity. Later, in 2011, it issued his Cybersecurity Legislative Proposal, calling on Congress to take urgent action to give the private sector and government the tools they need to combat cyber threats at home and abroad.

The Obama Administration also issued the International Strategy for Cyberspace to make clear to foreign countries the foreign policy priority cybersecurity issues have become. And when Congress failed to pass comprehensive cybersecurity legislation, the Administration pressed forward, issuing an Executive Order to protect critical infrastructure by establishing baseline cybersecurity standards that the Obama Administration developed collaboratively with industry.