Take a look at the essay on the opposite page by Delaware's Tom Carper and two of his Senate colleagues, Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins. Their subject may seem remote in this time of joblessness and budget deficits.

But cybersecurity and the growing threats to it will play a crucial role in our future well-being.

The senators outline a bill they have proposed to boost cybersecurity measures and to coordinate defensive measures among government and industrial institutions. They wisely call for a cybersecurity "best practices" system that would essentially goad commercial interests into building better security systems and protecting their own and the clients' information.

The headlines about hackers and computer worms usually concern isolated breaches of commercial and governmental security systems. On the other hand, we know that a variety of countries have actively tried to penetrate our communications and power systems. As we grow more dependent on a "smart" power system, the entire electricity grid could be in danger from a sophisticated outside attack.

Cyber invasions of banking and credit card companies have put the financial lives of millions of consumers at risk. Likewise, lost government laptops have given strangers access to thousands of Social Security numbers.

New threats are coming. For example, the computer industry has long outsourced the manufacture of semiconductor chips. Now, because of global competition, the industry is outsourcing the design of the chips. It would be hard to compromise the chips in the manufacturing stage, but relatively easy among the designers. Today, different teams design the various blocks that link to make up the tiny chips in your cellphone or that run airplanes or trains. How closely are they guarded? Chips can be tested extensively, as one expert said, but they cannot be tested exhaustively. A compromised chip, for example, can be built to launch an attack or shut down on the 99th or 9,000th time it is used.

We are not prepared for this new vulnerability. Of course, such a threat cannot be eradicated, but the Carper-Lieberman-Collins bill will move us closer to a smarter response.