Professor says US hacking no surprise

Cybersecurity expert and director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research Fred Cate said it should come as no surprise that foreign spies have hacked the U.S. electrical grid.

On April 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence agencies detected software programs left behind by cyberspies that could be used to disrupt the system. The spies are said to be from China and Russia because they have attempted to map U.S. infrastructure and desire to navigate the U.S. electrical grids.

Cate, an IU law professor, said in a recent press release that foreign entities have been attempting to hack such networks for years and succeeded on multiple occasions. The ability of spies of other countries to control the U.S. electrical grid could have detrimental effects.

“Entire networks may be crashed, eliminating access to cash, electricity or water,” Cate said.

The Obama administration implemented a 60-day cybersecurity review, which is to be completed April 16.

According to an article on http://news.cnet.com, the administration is reviewing ways to balance the need to address evolving threats – such as viruses or organized cybercrime – with the maintenance of information infrastructure.

Graduate student Lesley Ham said she does not not understand why experts just would not be able to fix the problem.

“When I hear about hackers, since I don’t know anything about computers, I just hope someone specialized in that area would fix it,” Ham said.

Associate Vice President for Information and Infrastructure Assurance Mark Bruhn said the best approach is that we subscribe to a layered defense approach, trying to protect the functions the computer performs as well as the data.

Although Cate said his concern was not who was hacking the systems, but rather how to secure the networks better, one student’s concern was that the United States has assumed China is involved.

“I don’t know why America is blaming China repetitively, but China doesn’t have anything to do with it,” said graduate student Tian Ming.

Cate said the government needs to spend more money and be organized about security issues.

“My guess is that we will not have better cybersecurity until something terrible happens,” Cate said.