Cyber Security: Recovery and Reconstitution of Critical Networks

On July 19, 2005, the FFM Subcommittee held a hearing on the importance of cybersecurity to our nation’s critical infrastructures. The hearing highlighted the importance of forging a public/private partnership to protect critical infrastructures and focused on challenges facing DHS in facilitating and leveraging such a partnership. Important lessons learned through the September 11 terrorist attacks and the response to Hurricane Katrina further emphasized these challenges. Today, despite spending millions of dollars over the past year, the Department of Homeland Security continues to struggle with how to effectively form and maintain effective public/private partnerships in support of cybersecurity—including how to protect Internet infrastructure and how to recover it in the case of a major disruption. The public/ private partnership necessary to accomplish the goals of DHS in securing computer networks continues to remain a public/ private divide. Interested in making progress on a public/private partnership for cybersecurity of our nation’s critical infrastructures, the objectives of the hearing are to highlight immediate steps that DHS and the private sector can take to formalize a partnership and to ensure effective response and recovery to major cyber network disruptions.