The White House should be much more involved in the cyber security of the United States. This was the main conclusion of a review on the matter carried out by Melissa Hathaway.

 

As she said during a San Francisco conference, the Internet was not built with cyber safety in mind and the White House should act.  The review was ordered by President Barack Obama, who plans to do something about this vulnerability which was highlighted more than once by foreign cyber attacks. 

 

However, securing the Web is very vast plan at least. It’s “one of the most serious challenges of the 21st Century” as Melissa Hathaway said. But first of all, all Americans should agree on whether they want the White House to take care of this and then the work should begin, said Hathaway, acting senior director for cyberspace for the National Security and Homeland Security Councils.

 

"We have witnessed countless intrusions that have allowed criminals to steal hundreds of millions of dollars and allowed nation- states and others to steal intellectual property and sensitive military information," Ms Hathaway said.

 

The latest cyber attack was on Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program: the construction of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Cyber attackers – most likely from China and Russia - managed to hack their way into the Pentagon computer system and steal some information about the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter, authorities said. The information stole could be used by adversaries to develop defense systems against the radar-evading fighter jet. 

 

Another cyber attack occurred last month. Cyber spies from China, Russia and a few other countries managed to penetrate the United States power grid. The cyber attackers left behind them software that could be used to shut down the system. The cyber spies breached the system in order to look for ways of manipulating it, according to U.S. national security officials. No harm was done to the electrical grid; this kind of attack could very easily be used in case of a conflict between the nations. 

 

In November 2008, computer systems at the White House were hacked by Chinese hackers, who thus came into the possession of several e-mails between government officials.  No classified information was stolen. U.S. government cyber intelligence professionals reckon that the hacking was sponsored by China’s government. 

 

A similar cyber attack was carried out on the computer systems of Barack Obama and John McCain during the presidential campaign. The source of the attack was believed to be China again.  However, even if the cyber experts are pretty sure the attack originated from China, they cannot be sure whether they were government-sponsored or just unaffiliated hackers.