Security Alert

By Brad

As eWeek reports, two days ago President Obama ordered Homeland Security advisors to conduct a 60-day review of the nation’s cyber-security.

“The national security and economic health of the United States depend on the security, stability and integrity of our nation’s cyberspace, both in the public and private sectors,” John Brennan, assistant to the president for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, said in a White House statement. “The President is confident that we can protect our nation’s critical cyber-infrastructure while at the same time adhering to the rule of law and safeguarding privacy rights and civil liberties.”

Again, that was just two days ago. And as it turns out, the review process quickly proved to be necessary, as just yesterday Network World reported that:

The Federal Aviation Administration has joined the growing list of government agencies that have had their supposedly safe systems hacked.  The agency this week notified about 45,000 employees that one of its servers was hacked into and employee personal identity information was stolen.

The FAA was quick to say the server that was accessed was not connected to the operation of the air traffic control system or any other FAA operational system.  It did say two of the 48 files on the breached computer server contained personal information about more than 45,000 FAA employees and retirees who were on the FAA’s rolls as of the first week of February 2006.

With President Obama planning to completely overhaul government networks, cyber security is going to be more important than ever.