Seth Rogen and James Franco, the unlikeliest of instigators for action in Washington, have given President Obama an opening to act on cyber threats.
The struggle for the White House, however, is taking the next step in warfare being fought on unfamiliar terrain.
Despite years of warning about chronic cyberattacks, mainly conducted by Chinese actors, it took the hacking of Sony Pictures and subsequent pulling of “The Interview” from most major movie theaters for the crisis to register with much of the public.
Now that Obama has Americans’ attention, the White House must provide a blueprint for how to address what former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta once called a possible “cyber-Pearl Harbor” which could affect the nation’s power grid, financial systems and transportation networks.
Soon after Obama vowed a “proportional response” against North Korea for the Sony hack, the communist nation’s Internet went completely dark. Many suspected the Obama administration was responsible — the White House would never confirm such actions, even if involved — but analysts say the president has yet to articulate how he would address the broader problem or what role Congress should play in the debate.
“We’re in the dark about cyber,” said Michael Auslin, a resident scholar and the director of Japan studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he specializes in Asian regional security and political issues. “We’re going to face a lot more of these attacks. They’re getting easier to do. You’ll find people emboldened to undertake them even more.
“The problem is no one really understands what the [White House] strategy is: What is your doctrine?”
The Obama administration has opened cyber command units throughout the military and intelligence services, and it has devoted billions of dollars to bolstering digital safeguards. Earlier this year, it charged five Chinese military officials with cyber espionage, a mostly symbolic act but one meant to showcase the administration’s attention to the issue.
But that North Korea — a nation with a relatively unsophisticated military — could so easily cripple the network of a major American company, prompted new fears about potential copycats or hackers targeting systems affecting millions of Americans.
Perhaps the most immediate need for the White House is to address the concern among private companies that they are on their own in both preventing and responding to cyberattacks. Some business leaders want clearer cybersecurity standards, but they balk at proposals from the Obama administration seen as overly burdensome.
Obama and a new Republican Congress will need to balance those concerns if they are to achieve the type of broad legislation demanded by reformers.
“Right now, it’s sort of the Wild West,” Obama said at a year-end press conference, addressing the cyber terrain.
“This is part of the reason why it’s going to be so important for Congress to work with us and get [an] actual bill passed that allows for the kind of information sharing we need,” he added. “Because if we don’t put in place the kind of architecture that can prevent these attacks from taking place, this is not just going to be affecting movies, this is going to be affecting our entire economy in ways that are extraordinarily significant.”
Yet, sources on Capitol Hill said there is no clear outline for potential legislation.
“Good question — wish I had an answer for you,” said one Democratic Senate aide.
“I don’t know,” replied a senior House Republican official.
Regardless, the Sony episode illuminated U.S. shortcomings in cyber defense that have lacked a “come to Jesus” moment in Washington.
Oddly enough, the uproar over “The Interview,” a terribly received comedy, may be the closest thing to a breakthrough. And analysts said that without major changes, the next Sony-style incident could be far more cataclysmic.
“The more that we focus on the North Korea angle or the foreign actor angle, the less we understand the bigger picture,” said Auslin, the American Enterprise Institute scholar. “There is not one bit of our privacy that is safe anymore. It is all at risk. No generation has ever lived like that before.”
