It’s been coming for some time, but on Friday President Obama finally announced the creation of a cyber security office in the White House, which will be under the control of a yet-to-be-named “cyber tsar.”
As the President pointed out, there has been no single body looking after the country’s digital infrastructure, and a number of terrorist organizations have threatened attacks, meaning that problems could come "not only from a few extremists in suicide vests, but from a few key strokes of a computer – a weapon of mass disruption."
With some 44,000 attacks reported in 2007 by the Pentagon, action is definitely necessary, since, Obama noted, “we are not as prepared as we should be.”
Although the new department will primarily protect government computers and other systems, individuals, too, will be looked after.
"Millions,” Obama said, “have been victimised: their privacy violated, their identities stolen, their lives upended, and their wallets emptied."
It’s also anticipated that the administration will create a cyber command at the Pentagon to block vulnerabilities in American computer networks, and also exploit them in others.
