WASHINGTON –– It’s serious and it’s here. It might be your stolen identity, it might be imposter status updates from your Facebook account, or it might be the shutdown of the electrical grid you rely on. But cyberattacks are a fact of life, a panel of experts noted, while cybersecurity is relatively uncharted legal territory, with less-than-optimal levels of acknowledgement and action by the government and industry.
“It’s one of those problems that if you do not deal with, it will deal with you,” said Harvey Rishikof, director of cybersecurity and the law at Drexel University’s iSchool.
The panelists at the Nov. 15 cybersecurity debate at the National Press Club, sponsored by the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative and the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security, were hesitant to give concrete statements about the size and nature of the cybersecurity threat, partially because much of the threat is cloaked in secrecy.