(Washington, DC) - U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D - Queens / Long Island) today introduced legislation to establish an independent commission to examine the threat to American businesses and infrastructure from cyberattacks.  Following recent hacker attacks on the offices of Members of Congress and studies showing broad vulnerability in the United States to cyber attack, Ackerman has called for a non-partisan expert commission to document the threat, to describe America's state of readiness and to recommend appropriate solutions and precautions.

"The United States is simply not keeping pace with the way technology is creating risk to our critical infrastructure" Ackerman said. "While most Americans assume that the risk from cyber attack is either small, or something the government is taking care of, the reality is probably just the opposite. This commission isn't about complaining about the weather, it's about making sure that we've got an umbrella and a good raincoat."

The Associated Press reported in February 2008, that during an extensive U.S.government cyber-attack simulation, the “U.S. barely made it through,” and that almost every sector of the U.S. economy and infrastructure, including agriculture, emergency response and preparedness systems, transportation, energy, health care, financial services, and telecommunications, proved to be at risk of disruption by cyber-attack. In addition to direct attacks on American infrastructure, American businesses face a more insidious threat in the silent mining of information by foreign hackers who then use that information against the company's interests  Eighty-five percent of the U.S. cyber infrastructure in this country is owned by the private sector, and security throughout the network varies widely. 

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