The Senate's big cybersecurity bill has finally surfaced officially, and the hearing will be tomorrow at 2:30 DC time in front of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. After Sen. Rockefeller and Sec. Napolitano, I'll be part of a panel that includes Gov. Tom Ridge, Scott Charney of Microsoft, and Jim Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Here's my prepared testimony.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Collins, members of the committee, it is an honor to testify before you on such a vitally important topic. I have been concerned with cybersecurity for two decades, both in my private practice and in my public service career, as general counsel to the National Security Agency and, later, to the Robb-Silberman commission that assessed U.S. intelligence capabilities on weapons of mass destruction, and, more recently, as assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security. In those two decades, security holes in computer networks have evolved from occasionally interesting intelligence opportunities into a full-fledged counterintelligence crisis. Today, network insecurity is not just an intelligence concern. It could easily cause the United States to lose its next serious military confrontation.
Moore’s Outlaws: The Exponential Growth of the Cybersecurity Threat
Our vulnerabilities, and their consequences, are growing at an exponential rate. We’ve all heard of Moore’s Law. What we face today, though, are Moore’s outlaws: criminals and spies whose ability to penetrate networks and to cause damage is increasing exponentially thanks to the growing complexity, vulnerability, and ubiquity of insecure networks. If we don’t do something, and soon, we will suffer network failures that dramatically change our lives and futures, both as individuals and as a nation.
It doesn’t take a high security clearance or great technical expertise to understand this threat. It follows from two or three simple facts.
