That question draws some 15,000 security professionals and IT bigwigs to San Francisco each year for the RSA Conference, taking place this week. There they learn about the newest threat to corporate networks, and are wooed by the makers of the newest flavor of corporate firewalls, intrusion detection devices and biometric doo-dads.
The answer they always get, not surprisingly, is that the online world is pretty darn dangerous, unless you use our products and services. What's new this year is that the U.S. government is joining the party with much the same pitch. The nation's intelligence and anti-terror agencies are newly determined to take a more active role in protecting the United States from cyberattack, and they're seeking new authority to monitor the internet in order to save it.
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff is traveling Tuesday to the conference to pitch a program the Bush administration calls the Cyber Initiative. Slated for $154 million in funding this year, the plan would put the National Security Agency and DHS in charge of cybersecurity for all federal government agencies.
That would mean that the nation's spies -- who began secretly targeting Americans since shortly after 9/11 -- will be monitoring when Americans visit the IRS or the Social Security Administration online.
This would mark a significant change in the NSA's defensive responsibilities, which have historically been limited to locking down military and classified networks and providing encryption technologies to soldiers and statesmen.