Cybersecurity and Counterintelligence

By Douglas Farah


The Obama administration is about to unveil its cybersecurity review, and the turf battles are brewing. What is seldom mentioned in the debate is that this is perhaps one of the most important issues the Obama administration will face.

The cypersecurity issue is an important part of the broader counter-intelligence effort, an effort that was woefully inadequate in past administrations, and one that is costing our nation dearly. As noted in the article above, the Chinese have stolen every single advanced weapons system design we have made in recent years, through human intel operations and electronically.

As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, our entire electrical grid has been mapped for foreign powers. Not just for the fun of it, and not to steal vital state secrets that will benefit them right away.

Rather, it is an embedded program that could remain passive for years, but could be activated in a second if to disrupt the entire electrical supply should they feel the need to. It is not a targeted effort at some parts of the country, but rather an ambitious effort to map the entire grid. Talk about thinking big!

We are only beginning to understand how penetrated our systems are, and the need to push back are figure out what the other guys are doing, why, and how to disrupt it. My full blog is here.

April 17, 2009 11:40 AM Link