Keeping America Safe

Résumé du livre

The digital systems that control critical infrastructure in the United States and most other countries are easily penetrated and architecturally weak, and we have known it for a long time. Yet Presidential leadership on infrastructure security has been hesitant and chiefly rhetorical, while system operators have tended to focus on short-term fixes and tactical improvements. Offense remains dominant. To break this cycle, the nation will require a coordinated, multi-year effort to address deep strategic weaknesses in the architecture of critical systems, in how those systems are operated, and in the devices that connect to them. This effort must in part be technically directed, but it will also require a re- evaluation of the laws, regulations, and policies that govern our networks. The challenges we face are not merely technical. They are also economic, managerial, behavioral, political, and legal. Indeed the technical challenges may be the easiest to address. This report identifies the most strategic of those challenges and proposes a policy and research agenda that has the potential to achieve significantly higher levels of security in critical networks over a five- to ten-year period. But the nation must begin now. Our goal is action, both immediate and long-term.