Guest blog post by Ari Schwartz, Internet Policy Adviser at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and member of the Internet Policy Task Force at the Department of Commerce.
As we all know, the Internet
has led to incredible commercial growth and an unprecedented means for
self-expression and innovation. Some industry analysts now estimate that
the Internet now carries some $10 trillion in online transactions annually.
However, each time a new
technology dramatically expands the boundaries of commerce, there are
dishonest, dangerous people who try to disrupt and exploit the new pathways for
their own gain. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that as the Web,
e-mail, and e-commerce have become the electronic version of Main Street,
hackers, spammers, and cybercriminals have emerged as major threats to its
welfare. An estimated 67,000 new malicious viruses, worms, spyware and other
threats are released every day.
To paraphrase Willy Sutton: It’s where the money. . . and the information is.
A new Commerce Department
report issued today calls for a
public-private partnership and voluntary codes of conduct to help strengthen
the cybersecurity of companies that increasingly rely on the Internet to do
business, but are not part of the critical infrastructure sector as defined by
the administration’s
recent cybersecurity legislative proposal. Issued by the department’s
Internet Policy Task Force, the report targets what it calls the Internet and
Information Innovation Sector or the I3S. These are businesses that range
from Mom and Pop manufacturers or startups that sell most of their products and
services online to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to cloud
computing firms that provide anytime, anywhere access to applications and
personal or public data.