“Speaking to a group of U.S. business leaders last week, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta issued a dire warning that foreign hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and that their online attacks on transportation systems, banks and other vital facilities are escalating.”
Based on the numerous blog articles that this class has presented on cyber security, I’m pretty sure we have proven this quote to be true. Certain cyber activists, like Defense Secretary Panetta, are again lobbying congress for a more defined structure on how to handle and protect the United States from what he calls a potential “cyber Pearl Harbor”.
The United States has become an increased target for foreign nation sponsored cyber attacks, and we’re pretty unprepared. In August, measure S.3414 was presented to the Senate. Measure S.3414′s basic goal was to, “… enhance the security and resiliency of the cyber and communications infrastructure of the United States.” This measure was unfortunately blocked by a Republican filibuster. Why it was blocked, I’m not going to get into (politics can be a dangerous zone to enter), but what is clear is that there is a need for a more defined government cyber defense policy.
This need has now materialized itself in a bipartisan House bill that only addresses the area of information sharing between targeted companies and the federal government. This new bill, H.R. 3523, is aimed to “… provide for the sharing of certain cyber threat intelligence and cyber threat information between the intelligence community and cybersecurity entities, and for other purposes.”
As the topic of cyber defense has reached a governmental level, it is becoming very clear time and time again that there is an apparent need to a centralized cyber defense measure. The fate of H.R. 3523 is not known yet, but time will tell if we as a country make the move to a more secure digital future.
Sources:
A Cyber Self Defense Blog [by njlicht] 
