A Glimpse at the Future Regarding Cybersecurity

Today's Washington Post contains an article about collaboration between the National Security Agency (NSA) and Google ("Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks," February 4, 2010, Washington Post). This will no doubt horrify some people and cause others to scratch their heads and wonder, "why?"

But this kind of collaboration will be happening to a far greater degree in the future -- collaboration between cyberprotection agencies and major corporations, and ultimately even Internet Service Providers. Here's why.

Were an enemy to attack the US mainland and ravage a coastal US city, or private propertly, it is the responsibility and duty of the US military to respond -- to fight off the intruder and protect the private property. No one disputes this notion.

But cyber attacks on corporations are exactly analogous. A terrorist infiltration of Google's headquarters in San Jose, by men with weapons, is no different than a cyber infiltration of Google's networks by Russian or Chinese hackers with intentions to disrupt or destroy. Both can be equally injurious and deadly.

Cyber protection of the homeland will ultimately, and intimately, intertwine the activities of the DOD, businesses, and private individuals. How this is done is being debated endlessly behind closed doors within all service branches and at the NSA. But the time will come when it is routintely recognized that the US military (and I include NSA here) will be standing guard outside the virtual, e.g., cyber, community, just as they stand guard around our nation's borders.