American hackers called upon to help U.S. to fight overseas hackers

General Dynamics Information Technology has announced last month that Homeland Security Department was seeking to hire people, who understand hackers' tools and tactics and are able to analyze Internet traffic and identify vulnerabilities in the federal systems. It is also known that Pentagon plans to increase the number of cyberexperts it can train each year from 80 to 250 by 2011.

Many specialists stated that the U.S. was not well prepared for a cyberattack, highlighting that the law enforcement and other protections were too outdated to keep threats from criminals, terrorists and unfriendly foreign nations away. Pentagon data shows, that more than $100 million was spent in the last six months responding to and repairing damage from cyberattacks and other computer network problems. 

There is already a program called Einstein that was initiated by the Bush administration under the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), which uses ethical hackers to analyze threats to the government's computer systems and develop ways to reduce vulnerabilities.

Considering the said above Obama ordered the 60-day review of how federal agencies manage and protect their data and what the government's role should be in guarding the networks controlling the country's vital utilities and infrastructure. Melissa Hathaway, a former Bush administration aide appointed by Obama to lead the review, met with hundreds of experts and sought recommendations on the matter.

Source: The Associated Press