Hilton Collins

NEW YORK, USA: Even before 2010 began, research organizations and vendors forecast trouble on the cyber-security front. In December 2009, Kaspersky Lab predicted that 2010 would see more sophisticated malware attacks that would reach more places, like phones and social networking platforms. Fast-forward to July, and another research firm claimed that more complex cyber-attacks were occurring than before.

Mark Weatherford, California’s then-chief information security officer (CISO), wrote in January that such reports highlighted how susceptible U.S. infrastructure is to cyber-crime and cyber-terrorism. And at a March symposium on protecting the global supply chain, government, academic, nonprofit and corporate attendees agreed that cyber-dangers even threaten America’s stream of goods. Since technology touches everything now — even how people get food — these supply chains are vulnerable.

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The federal government moved to shore up protection of the nation’s digital infrastructure, but those efforts took awhile to get moving. Months after the Obama administration completed a 90-day review of the nation’s digital infrastructure in December 2009, the president appointed Howard Schmidt to be the first White House cyber-security coordinator.

Then in May 2010, four-star Army Gen. Keith Alexander was named commander of the newly created U.S. Cyber Command, a subdivision of the U.S. Strategic Command.

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This federal activity impacted state and local government efforts. Maryland officials, for example, recommended in January that the state align its cyber-security initiatives with those of the Obama administration. In a summer IBM-sponsored survey about state cyber-security management, CISOs viewed their relationships with the federal government differently. It was recommended that individual CISOs sit down with federal counterparts to work out unique cyber-security strategies.

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Although the federal government took significant steps toward strengthening leadership and coordination on national cyber-security issues, more work remained as 2010 drew to a close. In August, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report calling for greater public-private cooperation on cyber-security matters. The authors noted the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, which is designed to coordinate information sharing between government and corporate entities. But the report stressed that the public and private sectors must work closely together to fight cyber-crime.

Source: Government Technology(http://www.govtech.com)