Federal Computer Week quotes Cyber Statecraft Initiative Director Jason Healey on the need for a broader, more imaginative public discussion about future cyber threats:
But the public discussion of cyber threats to critical infrastructure needs to move beyond clichés, said Jason Healey, director of the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative. “We started talking about digital Pearl Harbors in 1991,” said Healey, who was director for cyber infrastructure protection at the White House from 2003 to 2005.
Casting the threat as either a one-off catastrophe or a continuation of the status quo “strikes me as a very, very limited way of talking about” cybersecurity, he said, adding that he worries it “accurately reflects the lack of deep thinking on this” in U.S. policy circles.
Policymakers should be more imaginative in considering future cyberspace scenarios, Healey added. If, for example, cyber offense and defense are more automated in the future, he asked, what implications will that have for the cyber workforce the United States is building?