Government is failing to protect businesses and itself from cyber attacks

Washington Examiner:

The most fundament purpose of government is to protect the nation against outside attacks and to ensure the safety of its citizens. Our federal government is failing in this foundational duty. This month we learned of yet another federal failure to adequately secure American's private information. A hack of the Internal Revenue service first reported in May was nearly three times as large as previously stated, with hackers stealing information from as many as 334,000 taxpayer accounts.

This comes on the heels of the largest hack of Americans information in history with over 20 million individuals' records stolen from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. If the government cannot defend itself against cyberattacks, it should not demonize the private sector when, after good faith efforts, it cannot either. A private sector data breach is the only crime for which we punish the victim rather than the perpetrator. Business needs a robust government defender and adequate liability safeguards to protect free enterprise and cultivate innovation.

American business is on the frontline of modern warfare. Companies of all sizes are responsible for defending against cyberattacks from the most sophisticated nation states and large-scale criminal and terrorist enterprises. Cyber warfare, unlike conventional military capabilities, does not have a high cost of entry, and many actors are rapidly developing sophisticated operations.

Further, cyberattacks on large companies shot up by 44 percent from 2013. Lloyd's of London estimates that cybercrime costs businesses more than $400 billion a year. For the first time in history, our private sector is tasked with defending itself against direct attacks from our nation's enemies. However, there is an emerging threat to American companies in this war, a coming barrage of costly state court cyber litigation that will place the very existence of American manufacturing at risk.

The focus of cyberattacks has spread from one economic sector to the next as evolving technologies provide new opportunities for penetration. Traditionally, we think of data breaches targeting large retailers and financial institutions, although small and medium-sized businesses made up approximately 60 percent of all cyberattacks last year. The rapid rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) — the increasing interconnectedness of devices with the ability to gather, store process, and send data — means the amount of data and number of devices attackers can target is exploding. Nearly 40 percent of manufacturers already embed sensors in their products to allow customers to gather sensor-generated data. This radical change in where and how we incorporate interconnected technology will mean that manufacturing is about to become one of the most targeted economic sectors for cyber-attacks.
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Don't be surprised if trial lawyers will be the next to capitalize on these vulnerabilities.  They will be suing the victims of attack for not protecting data of their clients.  You are already seeing aspects of this in the recent hack of the spousal cheating site.  While they might not be a very sympathetic defendant  the OPM cyber attacks show the government can't protect its own data.

The Pentagon formed a cyber command for cyber wars, but so far it is absent from this battle field and the Obama administration's response to the attacks ranges from tut-tutting to "thanks may I have another."  If this is not an issue in the next election it should be and Hillary Clinton not only had a vulnerable server, but she is also vulnerable on this issue.