Cybersecurity Issue

The current national security topic under discussion in the United States is cybersecurity. Russia, according to US intelligence officials, played a key part in the cyber attack aimed at the 2016 election (McFaul and Amy 1). Furthermore, the Obama administration says that Russia tried to meddle with the elections by targeting political parties and the Democratic National Committee's servers (Lipton, David and Scott 1). Cybersecurity is a crucial concern that the current administration should fix.
The two solutions to the cybersecurity crisis are as follows. First and foremost, the US government should build and execute a cyber counterintelligence strategy. The plan is critical in coordinating activities to identify, prevent and alleviate the foreign-sponsored cyber intelligence threats (Newlands 1). Second, the government can address this issue by increasing the security of classified networks. Classified networks contain the most sensitive information of the federal government. The government needs to ensure the integrity of these networks and the data (Lipton, David and Scott 1). Therefore, the president and Congress should speed up the pace at which the federal sector updates technology since its advancement is outpacing security.
The preferable solution is developing and implementing the government-wide cyber counterintelligence plan. The government can accomplish this goal by increasing employee awareness about the cyber counterintelligence threats, initiate cyber counterintelligence education and awareness program (McFaul and Amy 1). Moreover, it will be significant if the federal government increases counterintelligence collaboration across the state and local levels. The federal government can unleash state-of-the-art innovations that would help to combat cyber-attacks. The role of states is to examine and adopt policies and standards enacted by the federal government and respectful organizations such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (Newlands 1). Regarding the local government, its role is to develop a local task force that would make my community more cyber secure.
Works Cited
Lipton, Erick, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane. “The perfect weapon: how Russian cyberpower invaded the U.S.” The New York Times. 13 Dec. 2016. Web 12 Jan. 2017.
McFaul, Michael and Amy Zegart. “America needs to play both the short and long game in cybersecurity.” The Washington Post. 19 Dec. 2016. Web. 12 Jan. 2017.
Newlands, Murray. “How to tackle today’s cybersecurity threats.” Chicago Tribune. 19 Jan. 2016. Web 12 Jan. 2017.