Blog: U.S. Struggles to Ward Off Evolving Cyber Threat

U.S. Struggles to Ward Off Evolving Cyber Threat
Reuters (05/12/10) Stewart, Phil; Wolf, Jim

More than 100 foreign spy agencies, as well as criminal organizations and terrorist groups, are probing U.S. computer systems thousands of times per day and scanning them millions of times daily, says U.S. Department of Defense official James Miller. He says authorities have failed to stay ahead of the cyberattacks, which have resulted in the loss of an enormous amount of data. Miller says the problem is compounded by the fact that the U.S. does not fully understand the vulnerabilities that hackers are taking advantage of. However, he says there are several steps the U.S. could take to improve cybersecurity, including working with private industry to protect potential vulnerabilities in vital infrastructure such as power grids and financial markets. Miller also says the U.S. needs to focus on developing more computer programmers, since countries such as China and India are expected to produce many more computer scientists than the U.S. will over the next 20 to 30 years.

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