[ISN] 'Cyber War' author: U.S. needs radical changes to protect against attacks

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/040710-clarke-book-review.html

By Ellen Messmer
Network World
April 07, 2010

In his new book, Cyber War [1], Richard Clarke says nations are building 
up their online armies and weapons largely far from public view, 
increasing the danger of a deliberate or accidental cyberwar, which in 
turn could trigger violent conflicts across the globe.

"Cyber war has already begun," Clarke writes. "In anticipation of 
hostilities, nations are already preparing the battlefield.' They are 
hacking into each other's networks and infrastructures, laying in 
trapdoors and logic bombs -- now, in peacetime. This ongoing nature of 
cyberwar, the blurring of peace and war, adds a dangerous new dimension 
of instability." 

The United States, he says, has a weak cyber-defense posture and should 
make radical changes, such as regulating ISPs to be able to play a role, 
under government supervision, in defending the country should a serious 
cyberattack strike. 

Clarke, turning 60 this year, served as special advisor to the president 
for cyber security in 2001 and now teaches at Harvard's Kennedy School 
for Government and works at Good Harbor Consulting. He tapped Robert 
Knake, international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, 
with a specialty studying cyberwar, as co-author of the new book, 
expected out April 20. 

[1] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061962236/c4iorg

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