The Cyber Defenses Of The United States

Cyber espionage is the act of attempting to penetrate an adversarial system for the purposes of extracting sensitive or protected data of either social or technical in nature. They are illicit activities that range from the commercial and economic to the political and strategic. They include small nuisance attacks to matters of high magnitude and importance like the national security and intelligence (Cornish 2012). Chinese cyber espionage has continued to escalate in recent years; it has continued to gain attention in many institutions including the media, the technology and information services industries, in scientific research and innovations, and as well as the general public. All these institutions are aware that china is taking part in the systematic development of cyber techniques that they intentionally use to invade international organizations, national governments, commercial companies, universities, and research institutes (Cornish, 2012).

The Internet was first used in the nineteen sixties by a small group of technology professionals. Since then the internet has become an essential part of today’s world, from communicating through texts and emails to banking, studying, and shopping, the internet has touched every aspect of our lives. With the growing use of the internet, protecting important information has become a must. While some believe they have the right to privacy, and feel that the government should not be at the center of their lives. Others feel that the Internet has evolved into a weapon for our enemies, and believe the government must take action by proactively

Up until recently, agents of the government could generally file requests for court orders that, if approved, compel the companies to provide the requested information. Congress in the 1990s passed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, to facilitate private-sector cooperation with law enforcement. This act required telecommunications companies to configure their systems in a way that would enable them to effectively respond to court orders. Five Simple Things Companies Should Do to Protect Their Computer Systems Apples’ Weakest Online Security Link: Their Encryption Code How to Get People to Take their policy Security More Seriously Encryption Uncoded: A Consumers’ Guide

Since the onset of the first packet switching event that many believe to be beginning of the internet, no other technology besides the printing press has ever transformed the ability to deliver information. Although the internet is used by a large percentage of the civilized world, few Americans realize how vital cyberspace is to our national infrastructure. Today, we are faced with even more threats although it has been a recognized problem since 2009, when President Barrack Obama said “The cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation. It’s also clear that we’re not as prepared as we should be, as a government or as a country (Obama, 2009).” Every industry that operates in the United States is dependent on the internet for some aspect of their business. Commerce, transportation, financial institutions, military, as well as industrial control systems are all interconnected. This interconnectedness has created vulnerabilities within their infrastructure that have increasingly become targets of terrorists, script kiddies, foreign governments and hackers of all types.

Most ISIS practice customs from the 7th century, but the methods they use to fight a war are 21st century techniques. ISIS have an advanced computer network that uses social media to attract terrorists worldwide to help them attack countries like the United States. Many countries have been victims of cyber attacks but may not realize it until long after the security breach occurred.

Since digital information data is now considered as the new gold mine, national security and privacy on the internet can be seen as alternate extremes relying upon the gathering of people’s digital footprint and data. Understanding the foundational structure of each discipline, can bring critical cognizance to both the sides of the issues. Many academic and research scholars find the definition of privacy shady, complex, and ambitious. As stated by Robert. C. Post “Privacy is a value so complex, so entangled in competing and contradictory

National polls taken before the events of September 11th revealed that the possibility of entities abusing the technological system in place and the possible exploitation of this loss of privacy frightened Americans a few months ago.  According to the survey, a vast majority of Americans, nearly 84% a year ago, were concerned about businesses or individuals gathering information on themselves or family members and 54% of Americans considered themselves "very concerned"[2].  Americans were

There is no doubt the privacy of our online activities and the integrity of our communications have been the biggest casualty of the NSA’s surveillance of our lives. Although ongoing revelations of government eavesdropping have had a profound impact on many different aspects in life. The NSA must balance out their interference with citizens lives because it’s undermining the government's leadership on internet safety, deteriorating internet security, and is causing economic losses to U.S. businesses due to decreasing customer trust.

While working as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at the Army Materiel Command, the command was under constant attack by hackers. The Army’s current network defense system was woefully inadequate for protecting the commands 140 locations worldwide. After sustaining a couple of very high profile attacks using these tools, it became evident that something else was needed. One of the command’s subordinate commands was the Army Research Labs and is on one the foremost research labs in the world. One of the labs mission was Cyber Defense and came under my preview as it program manager. The lab had developed several cyber security tools and had been testing them very successfully on a several platforms. The power of this tool

He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good – he’s probably employed by the NSA! In the United States of America, the NSA has taken the place of Santa Claus in watching over us, but the biggest difference is instead of giving gifts they take our privacy. Many Americans expressed outrage at the shocking revelations of Edward Snowden, but there was another group that was perhaps more vocal than the millions of Americans: the tech sector. It seems odd that the tech sector, which makes a large profit in selling the privacy of its customers, was outraged to discover that the government was abusing their privacy for security. However, this is exactly the case. In light of such reactions to the NSA by private companies, it is important to understand the notion of privacy these companies hold, how this differs from individuals, and what possible effects the NSA has on corporations and the American people.

China is responsible for cyber espionage against the U.S. resulting in significant damage to the U.S. economy. The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property found that, China is responsible for up to 70% of incurred losses of the U.S. (Navarro 2016). The Center for Strategic and

And with 3 billion phone calls made and 150 billion emails sent to and from the United States every day, the collection of this personal data without specifying the limits to their searches is unclear and unjust. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Yahoo among many others have recently, under protection from the Obama administration, revealed details as to the statistics of government collection. Even our nation's biggest telecom companies, AT&T and Verizon, were obliged to work with the NSA, lately disclosing information on the filtering equipment they were necessitated to use. The storage of this data for prolonged periods of time also makes these companies and their users vulnerable to security breaches such as theft and attack by hackers; for example, the cyber-security firm Trustwave discovered a server on November 24, 2013 which contained the information of over 318,000 accounts on Facebook. This breach was evidently made possible by companies storing data for an unnecessary amount of time as well as a weakened encryption standard. Both were implemented and enforced by the NSA, and the forced retention this data for over five years not only renders this metadata vulnerable to theft or misuse, but has also not been proven to be notably valuable in thwarting terrorist attacks.

The United States is under attack. To be exact, the nation’s power grid is under attack in the form of cyber warfare. On May 21st, 2013 Congressmen Edward J. Markey and Henry A Waxman published a report that provided the findings from information that they had requested from over 150 utility companies (of which 60% responded). More than a dozen utilities reported “daily, constant, or frequent attempted cyber-attacks” (Markey & Waxman) with one utility reporting that they have about 10,000 attempted attacks per month!

Tomorrow’s terrorist may be able to do more damage with a keyboard than with a bomb (National Research Council1). The United States Department of States defined terrorism as: “…premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.” Terrorism not only occurs on the real life today but also on the internet. As the technology rapidly developed, there is an increase in the usage of internet, the threat comes along the way. Due to the occurrence of internet terrorism-generating fears to the public, the term “Cyberterrorism” was coined by Barry Collin in the 1980’s (Cyberterrorism Defined). The definition of cyberterrorism differs from various legal systems and government

The U.S. Government has turned the Internet into something it was never intended to be: a system for spying on us in our most private moments. Out of control government