Nov. 15 (UPI) — The United States will see more severe and destructive cyberattacks over the next decade than it has faced to date, a presidential advisory committee warned.
The President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee’s 56-page report to the White House seeks to make the U.S. a global leader in cyber security by 2028.
The committee urged the Trump administration to establish a council with an executive director to make cybersecurity a priority for the federal government. President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence would chair the committee.
The advisory group, which started meeting in February, adopted the term “Cybersecurity Moonshot Initiative,” likening it to the mission to put a man on the moon in 1969.
“The United States is at an inflection point: simultaneously faced with a progressively worsening cybersecurity threat environment and an ever-increasing dependence on Internet technologies fundamental to public safety, economic prosperity, and overall way of life,” the report reads.
The report details technologies that need to be accelerated to prevent hackers compromising the Internet. They include augmented intelligence, quantum communications and cryptography, behavioral biometrics and 5G communications networks designed with enhanced security.
“Cybersecurity threats are becoming more frequent, more sophisticated and more destructive–gradually eroding trust in digital infrastructure,” the report reads. “As technology continues to advance and every facet of daily life becomes increasingly interconnected, both the likelihood and the cost of failure rises dramatically. Our age of hyper-connectivity now means that your risk is my risk as attacks on the weakest links can now bear consequences for the broader digital environment.”
The report also suggests adopting public service campaigns similar to the anti-drunken driving and Smokey the Bear initiatives to change behaviors and get the public to do its part.
Cybersecurity requires a balance between safety and privacy for the public, it says.
“Privacy is a core principal that must permeate all aspects of the Cybersecurity Moonshot Initiative’s development and will be paramount to engendering the trust of the American people,” the report reads.
Patrick Gallagher, chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh and former head of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said the moonshot analogy may not be the most appropriate because there’s no set finish line on when the Internet will be 100 percent safe. Still, the report details ways cyber issues could be solved over the next decade.
“So you gotta actually pick something that the government can mobilize on, either by funding to encourage it or by doing it directly,” Gallgher said in a report by The Hill newspaper.
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