Carper: 2008 Cyber Attack Underscores U.S. Vulnerabilities
August 26, 2010
| 4:51 PM
A key member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said Thursday that the recent revelation that the U.S. military was the victim of a major cyber attack in 2008 underscores the need to better secure all federal government and civilian computer systems.
The comments from Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., a senior member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, comes a day after Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn III revealed details from the 2008 attack in an article published online Wednesday in Foreign Affairs magazine. In the article, Lynn confirmed that the U.S. military was the victim of "the most significant breach of U.S. military computers ever" in 2008 when an infected USB drive was inserted into a U.S. military laptop at a Middle East base.
"This latest revelation underscores the scary reality of how vulnerable we really are to cyber criminals, terrorists, and nation-states seeking to use technology to steal from us or do us harm," Carper said.
Carper, chairman of the Homeland Security's Federal Financial Management Subcommittee, said the attack underscores the need for legislation he has co-sponsored with Homeland Security Chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., that would establish the office of cyber policy in the White House to lead the federal government's cybersecurity efforts. The measure also would extablish a National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications within the Department of Homeland Security that would enforce cybersecurity policies throughout the government and includes measures aimed at improving private sector cybersecurity.
"We won't be as safe as we should be until we ensure that a fully capable civilian agency is at the helm of our cyber security efforts, working as an open and transparent partner with the private sector to defend our nation from these types of attacks," Carper said.
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