DHS Sec Napolitano Gives Rundown on U.S. Cybersecurity Efforts

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano shared her latest thinking about the nation’s cybersecurity during a Washington, D.C., symposium on Thursday, Oct. 27, at which she said government continues to struggle identifying who exactly is response for cyberattacks.

The United States faces threats from overseas, both from state actors and from criminal groups in those states. “We don’t have good attribution in many of these cases,” she said. Sec Napolitano said the No. 1 type of cyberattack that worries her is one that would damage the nation’s critical infrastructure and cause loss of life or disrupt everyday living. She was vague, though, when asked if the U.S. had already come close to experiencing that type of attack. Sec Napolitano merely said that the DHS is learning from every incident. Sec Napolitano offered sobering figures, such as that Web-based intrusions have increased 90 percent since 2009. In many cases, the government must rely on corporate players to deal with these threats. According to Napolitano, the country experiences thousands of cyberattacks daily. They include theft of intellectual property, instruction into critical infrastructure via denial-of-service attacks and malware planting, and the infiltration of government networks.