On the recordJuly 31, 2012
I rise to continue the discussion on the cyber security legislation, and particularly S. 3414, the pending business before the Senate, which is the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, the bipartisan piece of legislation to deal with an urgent national crisis. I want first, again, to speak to our colleagues about the seriousness of the threat. I think sometimes that because most people haven't experienced the consequences of a cyber attack--and most are not aware of the constant cyber theft going on with moving money from bank accounts and stealing industrial secrets--frankly, a lot of the businesses that are victims of the theft don't want to acknowledge them or announce them for fear of exposing their own lack of adequate cyber defenses, but also a kind of general embarrassment. Yet we now know as a public matter--whether it has sunk into the consciousness among most of the American people--that some great companies that are very tech savvy, cyber savvy, have been the victims of cyber attacks. Sony, RSA, Google, and others have come momentarily to public attention, but I think what this has meant has been unclear to people. It may, in fact, be unclear to many of the leaders of the private corporations that control so much of our critical cyber infrastructure. In America, 80 to 85 percent of the critical infrastructure is privately owned. That is the American way. That is the way it ought to be.…
