Cybersecurity 5/29/09

サイバー安保を強化し、専任の長官を置くことをオバマ大統領が発表した。国家安全保障の一貫として毎日報告を受けるという力の入れ方である。アルカイーダのようなテロ組織からのサイバー攻撃だけでなく、軍事機密が他国に漏洩することも大きな目的だ。具体的な国名を挙げてはいないが、中国を念頭に置いていることは明らかと思われる。
農業改革、産業改革に次ぐ新たなサイバー革命は始まったばかりであり、幼児期にあるとも言える。全てのビジネス、電気・水道などのインフラ、鉄道・航空輸送など生活基盤が全てネットに依存しており、逆に遠隔地からGPSを利用してクリックひとつで生活・経済・安全への脅威を与えることが可能になっている。
情報管理に関しての統制が現在は省別にバラバラであり、垣根を越えて横断した統括的管理が必須となっている。しかしこれは個人情報を政府が監視する意図では無い。寧ろ自由を確保する為の基盤整備を行おうとしているのである。
So cyberspace is real. And so are the risks that come with it.
It’s the great irony of our Information Age — the very technologies that empower us to create and to build also empower those who would disrupt and destroy.
But every day we see waves of cyber thieves trolling for sensitive information — the disgruntled employee on the inside, the lone hacker a thousand miles away, organized crime, the industrial spy and, increasingly, foreign intelligence services. In one brazen act last year, thieves used stolen credit card information to steal millions of dollars from 130 ATM machines in 49 cities around the world — and they did it in just 30 minutes. A single employee of an American company was convicted of stealing intellectual property reportedly worth $400 million. It’s been estimated that last year alone cyber criminals stole intellectual property from businesses worldwide worth up to $1 trillion.
In short, America’s economic prosperity in the 21st century will depend on cybersecurity.
And this is also a matter of public safety and national security. We count on computer networks to deliver our oil and gas, our power and our water. We rely on them for public transportation and air traffic control. Yet we know that cyber intruders have probed our electrical grid and that in other countries cyber attacks have plunged entire cities into darkness.
Our technological advantage is a key to America’s military dominance. But our defense and military networks are under constant attack. Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups have spoken of their desire to unleash a cyber attack on our country — attacks that are harder to detect and harder to defend against. Indeed, in today’s world, acts of terror could come not only from a few extremists in suicide vests but from a few key strokes on the computer — a weapon of mass disruption.
my administration will pursue a new comprehensive approach to securing America’s digital infrastructure.
This new approach starts at the top, with this commitment from me: From now on, our digital infrastructure — the networks and computers we depend on every day — will be treated as they should be: as a strategic national asset. Protecting this infrastructure will be a national security priority. We will ensure that these networks are secure, trustworthy and resilient. We will deter, prevent, detect, and defend against attacks and recover quickly from any disruptions or damage.
To give these efforts the high-level focus and attention they deserve — and as part of the new, single National Security Staff announced this week — I’m creating a new office here at the White House that will be led by the Cybersecurity Coordinator. Because of the critical importance of this work, I will personally select this official. I’ll depend on this official in all matters relating to cybersecurity, and this official will have my full support and regular access to me as we confront these challenges.
Today, I want to focus on the important responsibilities this office will fulfill: orchestrating and integrating all cybersecurity policies for the government; working closely with the Office of Management and Budget to ensure agency budgets reflect those priorities; and, in the event of major cyber incident or attack, coordinating our response.
Let me also be clear about what we will not do. Our pursuit of cybersecurity will not — I repeat, will not include — monitoring private sector networks or Internet traffic. We will preserve and protect the personal privacy and civil liberties that we cherish as Americans. Indeed, I remain firmly committed to net neutrality so we can keep the Internet as it should be — open and free.
The task I have described will not be easy. Some 1.5 billion people around the world are already online, and more are logging on every day. Groups and governments are sharpening their cyber capabilities. Protecting our prosperity and security in this globalized world is going to be a long, difficult struggle demanding patience and persistence over many years.
But we need to remember: We’re only at the beginning. The epochs of history are long — the Agricultural Revolution; the Industrial Revolution. By comparison, our Information Age is still in its infancy. We’re only at Web 2.0. Now our virtual world is going viral. And we’ve only just begun to explore the next generation of technologies that will transform our lives in ways we can’t even begin to imagine.
So a new world awaits — a world of greater security and greater potential prosperity — if we reach for it, if we lead. So long as I’m President of the United States, we will do just that. And the United States — the nation that invented the Internet, that launched an information revolution, that transformed the world — will do what we did in the 20th century and lead once more in the 21st.
Thank you very much, everybody.