Thousands of files are stolen from the Pentagon. Major oil
companies have gigabytes of internal information taken. Cyber
operators believed to be from Russia and China have even
penetrated the U.S. power grid, and probably left programming
behind that could shut down the electric grid. These examples
alone should prove that cyber security is an issue of paramount
concern for the U.S. While international cooperation may be of
some use, the most effective way to contain this problem is to
treat it as a national security issue. “Cyber-attack” is really
a misnomer, since almost all of these operations are not
offensive with the intent of causing direct damage to the nation
or company. A more accurate term is “cyber-espionage,” since the
ultimate goal of the state or non-state actors is almost always
to obtain information. This also helps explain why a diplomatic,
multi-nation solution will never occur. Cyber-espionage is in
the end a form of intelligence gathering, and almost every
nation in the world is involved