(1) For more than a decade, reports have described the increasing vulnerability of the United States to cyberattacks, including a recent leading think tank report that stated, ‘Cyber attack joins terrorism and weapons of mass destruction as one of the new, asymmetric threats that put the U.S. and its allies at risk.’.
(2) There have been numerous cyberattacks against United States intelligence and military targets, resulting in the Department of Defense spending more than $100,000,000 in the first 6 months of 2009 to repair damage to networks caused by cyberattacks.
(3) Cyberattacks cost the economy of the United States billions of dollars annually.
(4) A growing array of state and non-state actors, such as terrorists and international criminal groups, are targeting United States citizens, United States commerce, and the information infrastructure of the United States, including the Internet, telecommunications networks, computer systems, and embedded processors and controllers in critical industries, to steal, exploit, and potentially disrupt or destroy information.
(5) Cyber exploitation activity has grown more sophisticated, more targeted, and more serious over the past year and is expected to increase as advances in technology continue to increasingly underpin the society of the United States.
(6) Relevant international cybersecurity agreements focus only on issues relating to cyber crime and common operating standards and have not been signed by certain countries from which cyberattacks may be launched.
U.S. Congress - Text of S.1438 as Introduced in Senate Fostering a Global Response to Cyber Attacks Act
