Obama Finally Decides Who’s In Charge When America Comes Under Cyberattack

[Rogue Valley]

Obama Finally Decides Who’s In Charge When America Comes Under Cyberattack


For years, there’s been confusion in the private sector and among agencies about who does what when hackers hit the homeland. Not anymore....

It is still murky to me. Is a “major incident” equivalent to an "act of war"?

At what point does the Justice Department declare the US to be experiencing a digital Pearl Harbor?

 

[Mycroft]

So...

Did it take Obama this long to figure things out? Or, like so many other issues, did cybersecurity FINALLY get to be such an issue he couldn't ignore it any longer?

 

[Celebrity]

Obama Finally Decides Who’s In Charge When America Comes Under Cyberattack


For years, there’s been confusion in the private sector and among agencies about who does what when hackers hit the homeland. Not anymore....

It is still murky to me. Is a “major incident” equivalent to an "act of war"?

At what point does the Justice Department declare the US to be experiencing a digital Pearl Harbor?

I can't say for sure, but it seems pretty clear to me. Pearl Harbor involved the loss of a remote set of assets, namely the island of Hawaii and its citizens. Secure networks are more resilient when attacks hit and we are constantly developing new ways to protect our domestic assets. Most of the attacks that I've heard about involve defacing government property, stealing assets and infiltrating networks to establish illegal nodes.

A Digital Pearl Harbor would be very bad, although there's generally enough redundancy that it probably would require an attack on a scale we haven't seen before. An act of war would probably mean targeting more than a single business, which is ostensibly an attack on just that business. So a "digital Pearl Harbor" would mean the seizure of assets by unlawful means, in a robust attack on a very specific area. I don't think we're experiencing that. I think this is more of the US trying to come to terms with the fact that we're not out of the woods when it comes to internet security.

Chances are pretty good that you or someone else will know the attacker when you get hit. It can happen to anyone who's not careful. Sharing passwords is like handing over the key to the city, yet some people still do it. Downloading documents without security software is like receiving 21st century mail from the pony express. We are dealing with a nation of people who do not understand that they exist at some point in a defense which is not at all like Pearl Harbor. The borders aren't quite as easily recognizable, but they're there. Best case scenario, if everyone could just handle their own business we can move on with our lives without asking each other to make up for our mistakes.

 

[joG]

Obama Finally Decides Who’s In Charge When America Comes Under Cyberattack


For years, there’s been confusion in the private sector and among agencies about who does what when hackers hit the homeland. Not anymore....

It is still murky to me. Is a “major incident” equivalent to an "act of war"?

At what point does the Justice Department declare the US to be experiencing a digital Pearl Harbor?

I am so proud of the President. He is so efficient!

 

[Rogue Valley]

I can't say for sure, but it seems pretty clear to me. Pearl Harbor involved the loss of a remote set of assets, namely the island of Hawaii and its citizens. Secure networks are more resilient when attacks hit and we are constantly developing new ways to protect our domestic assets. Most of the attacks that I've heard about involve defacing government property, stealing assets and infiltrating networks to establish illegal nodes.

A Digital Pearl Harbor would be very bad, although there's generally enough redundancy that it probably would require an attack on a scale we haven't seen before. An act of war would probably mean targeting more than a single business, which is ostensibly an attack on just that business. So a "digital Pearl Harbor" would mean the seizure of assets by unlawful means, in a robust attack on a very specific area. I don't think we're experiencing that. I think this is more of the US trying to come to terms with the fact that we're not out of the woods when it comes to internet security.

Chances are pretty good that you or someone else will know the attacker when you get hit. It can happen to anyone who's not careful. Sharing passwords is like handing over the key to the city, yet some people still do it. Downloading documents without security software is like receiving 21st century mail from the pony express. We are dealing with a nation of people who do not understand that they exist at some point in a defense which is not at all like Pearl Harbor. The borders aren't quite as easily recognizable, but they're there. Best case scenario, if everyone could just handle their own business we can move on with our lives without asking each other to make up for our mistakes.

Digital Pearl Harbor incident: id est – Taking down Wall St. and all major financial institutions; taking down a significant portion of the US power grid; etc.

The Obama Directive is below...

PRESIDENTIAL POLICY DIRECTIVE/PPD-41 | Presidential Policy Directive -- United States Cyber Incident Coordination

 

[Henrin]

I like how this happened after Democrats were hacked.

 

[humbolt]

When I woke up this morning, I was wondering who would be in charge of mishandling cyber attacks. Now I know. I'm relieved. Before, nobody was in charge of mishandling them. Hate to be so cynical, but given the volume and seriousness of the one's already perpetrated, one would've thought the issue would be a bit more pressing.

 

[coldjoint]

So...

Did it take Obama this long to figure things out? Or, like so many other issues, did cybersecurity FINALLY get to be such an issue he couldn't ignore it any longer?

It took Hillary and the DNC to be hacked for him to worry about it, or it sure looks that way.

 

[Celebrity]

It took Hillary and the DNC to be hacked for him to worry about it, or it sure looks that way.

She's a bought and paid for politician. What did you expect?

 

[chuckiechan]

Obama has already decided who is in charge by doing nothing, each agency head has boiler plate: "protect and secure...yada,yada,", so Obama plan delegate by inaction.

You can steal all you can get away with, but when you alter the function of a process that might harm the public - shut down or damage a power grid, for example, it can be considered to be an act of war. The question is, is it a worthy and winnable fight. That is why stolen government emails are such a threat. They give you a glimpse into the mind of your targets leaders, and your psychologists can guess their likely reaction.

The problem is we usually don't know what has been stolen and what has been altered. I hope we are redrawing their undersea maps as we speak, because they sure as hell are trying to do the same to us.

Technological theft should be dealt with using tariffs formulated into "retroactive licensing agreements" prices as if an agreement was actually made, possibly plus a late charge, or they sit on the dock and rot.

 

[eohrnberger]

So...

Did it take Obama this long to figure things out? Or, like so many other issues, did cybersecurity FINALLY get to be such an issue he couldn't ignore it any longer?

Mycroft you know damn well that if it hadn't been for the DNC hacking incident and the WikiLeak release which made the entire party look really, really bad, that it would still be a non-issue for Obama.