Following hot on the heels of the theft of computer data on America’s most advanced fighter plane, President Obama’s cybersecurity advisor has called for more to be done in safeguarding information.

Melissa Hathaway, acting senior director for cyberspace, is leading a review into the issue of cybersecurity which the New York Times says “is simply the opening round in what may become a bruising political battle over how much control should be exercised and over which agencies of the government will take command of computer security”.

The review will likely be made public at the end of the month but Hathaway, speaking at the RSA 2009 conference in San Francisco, said cybersecurity was “one of the most serious challenges of the 21st Century”. She called for public and private organisations to come together with individuals to secure the internet (BBC).

“A few hours south of here, there are creative Hollywood writers and actors who have imagined and produced stories that capture the essence of the problem, including: Matthew Broderick in War Games, Robert Redford in Sneakers, Sandra Bullock in The Net, and Bruce Willis in Live Free and Die Hard. These and other movies present the types of issues that we should care about and solve together,” Hathaway told the conference (remarks from The Atlantic).

USA Today adds that she came on stage to the Mission Impossible theme music.

One group that won’t be taking charge is the National Security Agency. The Financial Times reports that Keith Alexander, NSA director, has declared, “We do not want to run cyber security for the US government. I think we need to dispel the rumours.”

An editorial in this week’s Nature also tackles the subject:

Neglected though they may be compared with the financial meltdown, climate change and pandemics, cyberattacks are just as much of a global threat. Like those others, they demand coordinated action and leadership by governments, which have a duty to boost research on the topic. But the threat also needs to be tackled by research institutions, which have a key role in encouraging the adoption and sharing of best practices, and in promoting an awareness of the risks among researchers at the bench.

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