You may recall that back in 2012, then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned of “a cyber Pearl Harbor; an attack that would cause physical destruction and the loss of life.”

This hasn’t quite come to pass has it? Is it dumb luck? Or are we just waiting for it to happen?

In his annual testimony about the intelligence community’s assessment of “global threats,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper sounded a more nuanced and less hyperbolic tone. “Rather than a ‘cyber Armageddon’ scenario that debilitates the entire U.S. infrastructure, we envision something different,” he said, “We foresee an ongoing series of low-to-moderate level cyber attacks from a variety of sources over time, which will impose cumulative costs on U.S. economic competitiveness and national security.”

The reality is that the U.S. is being bombarded by cyber attacks of a smaller scale every day—and those campaigns are taking a toll.

Now the DNI also went on to say “Although cyber operators can infiltrate or disrupt targeted [unclassified] networks, most can no longer assume that their activities will remain undetected, nor can they assume that if detected, they will be able to conceal their identities. Governmental and private sector security professionals have made significant advances in detecting and attributing cyber intrusions.”

Alan Paller of the SANS Institute says “Those words translate directly to a simpler statement: ‘The weapons and other systems we operate today cannot be protected from cyber attack.’ Instead, as a nation, we have to put in place the people and support systems who can find the intruders and excise them fast.”

So then what capabilities do you have in this area given that the attacks are continuous and ongoing against your infrastructure?

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