National Information Systems: The Achilles Heel of National Security

摘要

The civilian information infrastructure is the most vulnerable point in ournational security. Adversaries are fully capable of exploiting the U.S. information infrastructure and associated technologies to destroy our economic and national security. Exhaustive dependence on economic, industrial, military, and communications technology presents a perilous mix of blessings and risks to the Nation. The explosive growth and increasing dependence on information systems is phenomenal. The Executive Branch acclaiins a knowledge based global system that includes electronic commerce, health care, research communities, education systems, and a virtual electronic government. Disrupt this vast labyrinth of information and the result is national paralysis. Attackers from cyberspace have the advantages of anonymity, legal ambiguity, easily avallable weapons systems, attack speed, and nonlinear gains for their efforts. Attacks may come from myriad sources and by numerous means. An electronic Pearl Harbor is possible. The threat is real and actively growing. The military, commercial and economic sectors are technologically inseparable. The civil information infrastructure that represents the social and economic fabric of the nation is the Achilles heal of the national defense.