Reducing US Cyber Security Vulnerabilities

Article type: Review Article

Abstract: "The American IT infrastructure is highly vulnerable to premeditated attacks with potentially catastrophic effects," concluded the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) in a new report Cyber Security: A Crisis of Prioritization. "This infrastructure encompasses not only the best-known uses of the public Internet – E-Commerce, communications and Web services – but also the less visible systems and connections of the Nation's critical infrastructure such as power grids, air traffic control systems, financial systems, and military and intelligence systems. The growing dependence of these critical infrastructures on the IT infrastructure means that the former cannot be secure if the latter is not." The PITAC is appointed by the President to provide independent expert advice on maintaining America's preeminence in advanced IT. PITAC members are IT leaders in industry and academic with expertise relevant to critical elements of the national IT infrastructure such as high-performance computing, large-scale networking, and high-assurance software and system design. This report may be obtained from: http://www.nitrd.gov/pitac/. The following are excerpts from the report.

Journal: I-WAYS, Digest of Electronic Commerce Policy and Regulation, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 101-108, 2005