White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt isn't buying into the grim forecasts that the United States is ill prepared to defend the government's and nation's critical information assets from an immense virtual attack by political adversaries or cyber criminals.
Schmidt, in a face-to-face interview with GovInfoSecurity.com, said the federal government and the private businesses that control 85 percent of the nation's critical IT infrastructure are better positioned than ever to fend off massive digital assaults.
The Obama administration's top cybersecurity official was responding to questions about recent comments made by former National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell that the United States would lose a cyberwar and a simulated cyber attack known as Cyber ShockWave, aired last month on CNN, that disrupts smart phone service to 20 million customers, shutters an electronic energy trading platform and cripples the power grid along the Eastern seaboard.
"How would we fare in some sort of a massive cyber intrusion and attack like that? I think we're much better prepared now than we were in the past," Schmidt said in the interview held during the RSA 2010 IT security conference in San Francisco.
IT security professionals protecting key systems know of the existence of the vulnerabilities and are taking steps to mitigate them to lessen their impact, he said.
It seems that cyberterrorism is very real. I don't think we can be overly cautious when our security is at risk. Such places are monitored by a video security system so why not have a system that monitors web activity and usage? Security systems for our utility infrastructure is very important!
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