I think there are many reasons this is the case.

For one, the internet by its very existence has enabled anyone with a computer and internet access to become a potential threat to national security.

Computer security describes an "attack surface" which represents how exposed systems are to being compromised. For example, a firewall which has certain "holes" poked through it to allow specialized applications to connect from the outside has more of an attack surface than a firewall with no external points of entry.

It's important for government to monitor and police computer resources because it's all too easy for stuff to get lost in the shuffle of bureaucracy and become vulnerable to attack.

You may remember Gary McKinnon, who was arrested back in 2002 for accessing classified information on government computer systems. Here is a classic excerpt from a BBC interview with him:

"SK: How did you go about trying to find the stuff you were looking for in Nasa, in the Department of Defense?

GM: Unlike the press would have you believe, it wasn't very clever. I searched for blank passwords, I wrote a tiny Perl script that tied together other people's programs that search for blank passwords, so you could scan 65,000 machines in just over eight minutes.

SK: So you're saying that you found computers which had a high-ranking status, administrator status, which hadn't had their passwords set - they were still set to default?

GM: Yes, precisely."

This is one example of how bureaucracy can lead to loopholes which can be taken advantage of and used in cyberwar to access sensitive information.
Source(s):
BBC interview with Gary McKinnon:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/4977134.stm


Permalink | Report