Cybersecurity czar issues wake-up call to industry, agencies

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Much like the airline industry before Sept. 11, high-tech companies, customers and government agencies are well aware of security vulnerabilities but are reluctant to pay to fix them, President Bush's top computer-security adviser, Richard Clarke, said Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.

Clarke, speaking at the RSA Conference of computer security experts in San Jose, Calif., said it is just a matter of time before terrorists launch a cyber equivalent of the Sept. 11 attacks on critical infrastructure such as electricity grids. Clarke said the airlines had known for years about security weaknesses but chose not to address them. Clarke also suggested not connecting everything to the Internet.

Bruce Heiman, the executive director of Americans for Computer Privacy, said he feared that government could indirectly force industry standards and questioned the government's proposed GovNet intranet.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Clarke is pushing industry leaders to follow in the footsteps of Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, who recently said his company temporarily would stop producing new software products and focus on security.

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