America should not shrug at its cyber vulnerability

[Commentary] The United States is under siege in cyberspace. Disruption, theft, espionage and attack have been accelerating in recent years. The crisis of security on the Internet is real and deepening. The vulnerabilities threaten everyone who holds a credit card, visits a doctor or uses social media. Yet the national response has been alarmingly and inexplicably passive. Congress has debated comprehensive legislation but failed to reach agreement. The Administration is well aware of the siege and has taken some modest steps, but it can’t solve the problem alone. The private sector, deeply dependent on the Internet, is seriously exposed but also cannot find a solution.

Surely, if customers saw a pickpocket standing behind them, they would be wary — and furious. But there is a strange complacency about massive data breaches. As a society that has championed capitalism, pioneered the digital revolution and thrived on an Internet based on trust, Americans should be far less tolerant of this abuse. The thieves, spies and warriors in cyberspace need to be defeated, and it is long past time to get started figuring out how.