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Cybersecurity is becoming increasingly central to the public debate surrounding homeland security and defense operations. The private sector, particularly government contractors, are heeding the call and are positioning themselves as integral partners in the cybersecurity efforts taking place in the federal government, according to an article in Aviation Week.
“Demand is growing with awareness, and awareness comes because the alarm bell is ringing,“ said Carlos Solari, CSC vice president of cyber-technology and services.
CSC, a major IT provider to the federal government, is currently looking to improve its cyber capabilities. The majority of private companies tend to avoid advertising when a cyber attack occurs against them. That trend was recently broken when earlier this year Google announced it was subjected to a cyber attack.
“I give great credit to Google for speaking candidly and getting the issue into the public consciousness,“ Solari said. “For those in the know, the sophistication of the threat level is quite scary.“
The United States is the most networked nation in the world, making it one of the most vulnerable targets of cyber attack. “These threats have sophistication and motivation, they can be pervasive, persistent and stealthy, they can stealth data, deny services and harm reputations,“ Solari said.
Gen. Charlie Croom, VP of cybersecurity at Lockheed Martin, said: “The first computers were not connected. Then in the mid-1980s, we started connecting them without any thought of security.“
However, with the increasingly networked nature of the “cyber commons” and the lack of clearly defined rules and guidelines, “It“™s the Wild West,“ Croom said.
