Defending cyberspace

Professionals for Cyber Defense (PCD) recommends that President Bush promptly initiates a scientific process to assess the scale and gravity of the strategic threat of cyber warfare against the US. We expect it will confirm repeated warnings from the technical community. Assuming that such a process affirms a serious national threat, we urge the federal government to: assume a strong defensive role against serious attack; focus on countering strategic attacks having real-world effects; develop a top-down architecture and engineered approach to the problem; acknowledge that current technology is insufficient to defend against cyber warfare; and subsidize critical private defenses. We believe these recommendations must ultimately lead to an aggressive program involving the commitment of both private and public resources.