Republican senator John McCain called for the government to establish a special panel to come up with legislation to address supposed cybersecurity threats facing the United States. “The only way to move comprehensive cyber security legislation forward swiftly is to have committee chairmen and ranking members step away from preserving their own committees’ jurisdiction … (and) develop a bill that serves the national security needs of all Americans,” McCain said. As if on cue, the Pentagon announced two previously unpublicized attacks following McCain’s call for a bipartisan action. On Thursday, out-going deputy secretary of defense Bill Lynn said a foreign intelligence service had stolen 24,000 files on a sensitive weapons system from a defense contractor’s network. Lynn said the Defense Industrial Base Cyber Pilot was established to work with the private sector in the battle against cyber foes.
“Our success in cyberspace depends on a robust public-private partnership,” said Lynn. “The defense of the military will matter little unless our civilian critical infrastructure is also able to withstand attacks.” Lynn cranked up the paranoia in February when he speculated that al-Qaeda might get its hands on the Stuxnet virus. He said “it is possible for a terrorist group to develop cyberattack tools on their own or to buy them on the black market.” The highly sophisticated malware virus was engineered by the United States and with Israeli Mossad assistance placed on an Iranian industrial computer network in order to undermine the country’s nuclear energy program.
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