Note: This paper appeared in the 6th Volume of the Journal on Terrorism and Security Analysis in Spring 2011.
Excerpt
The Internet is a critical infrastructure necessary to the functioning of commerce government and personal communication and national security. The system is not secure. – Intelligence and National Security Alliance report, November 2009
In a 2002 report prepared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jim Lewis, a former official with the Department of State and the Department of Commerce wrote:
The idea that hackers are going to bring the nation to its knees is too far-fetched a scenario to be taken seriously. Nations are more robust than the early analysts of cyberterrorism and cyber warfare gave them credit for. Infrastructure systems [are] more flexible and responsive in restoring service than the early analysts realized, in part because they have to deal with failure on a routine basis.
Six years later, in its 2008 report, Securing Cyberspace for the 44th Presidency, the same CSIS concluded:
Interestingly, the project director for the 2008 report was, again, Jim Lewis. The contrast of analysis is not only striking for its reversal of positions, but also in its tone. The 2008 report called for a profound reorganization of our national defenses that embraces a spirit of partnership between the US Government, its allies, and the private sector. It also urges a break with the past on issues of de-regulation, security classification, and the call for leadership in order to drive forward a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. The authors also concede that the information age has forced us to re-think how federal government operates across boundaries within and outside itself.
How such previous attitudes could have been overturned so radically in a relatively brief span of time reveals more about the dynamic of the information- communication technology (ICT) revolution rather than it does about errors in a particular expert’s analysis. Not only the pace of technology but also the rate of growth and expansion of critical infrastructures, such as government, finance, energy, etc., have intensified our society’s use and dependency upon ICT.
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About the author
Jack Jarmon is the Associate Director of the Command Control and Interoperability Center for Advance Data Analysis at Rutgers University, an adjunct Professor at Seton Hall University and the Chief Research Officer at the New Era Associates. From 2008-2009 he was a lecturer at University of Pennsylvania. He was a technical advisor to USAID in the South Russian Privatization Center. Jarmon got his BA from Rutgers University, an MA from Fordham University and a PhD from Rutgers University. His published piece is one chapter from an upcoming textbook on security studies and international relations.