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DHS Secretary Warns of Potential Cyber Attacks

JB

There is no shortage of problems for President Obama and the new Congress to tackle as they settle into their offices in Washington, D.C., this week, and one of the topics that's at the top of that list is cybersecurity. Earlier this week a group of Democratic senators introduced a new cybersecurity bill, and now Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, is taking to the stump, saying that new legislation is required to prevent a "cyber 9/11."

The potential for a major national-level incident caused by a cyber attack is something that politicians, security officials and others in Washington have been discussing for more than a decade, at least. Advisers to Bill Clinton discussed the idea in the 1990s, as did George W. Bush's security team in the 2000s. The terms and syntax have changed somewhat over the years, but the message that a targeted cyber attack could have potentially disastrous effects in the real world has remained the same.