Michael Isikoff, a correspondent at NBC News, published an article on the arrest of a Malaysian man who was arrested by Secret Service agents last month after flying into New York with an encrypted laptop containing 400,000 credit card, debit card and bank account numbers. 

…But far more disturbing, according to U.S. intelligence officials and computer crime experts, was his penetration of both a Federal Reserve network of 10 computers in Cleveland as well as the secure networks of a "major" Defense Department contractor. 

Mr. Isikoff’s article mentions only very little of the methods used to steal the large quantity of data, but does mention several other US Government breaches and the concerns of officials about the growing threat of cyber warfare and cyber crime.

"If a guy from Malaysia can get into networks like this, you can imagine what the Chinese and Russians, the people with real capabilities, are able to do," said one former senior U.S. intelligence official, who monitored cyberthreats and asked for anonymity in order to speak candidly.

In fact, the penetration of sensitive national security computers by overseas hackers — many of them believed to be state sponsored — is rapidly emerging as one of the country’s most alarming national security threats, officials said. And the threat is not just from foreign governments and for-profit hackers. Officials have also expressed worries that terrorist groups may be capable of the same sorts of sophisticated penetrations.

It’s good to hear that the Federal Government recognizes the “growing” problem of cyber theft.  This isn’t actually a new problem; it’s just taken years for anything to be done about it.  In the article, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense, Bill Lynn, is quoted as saying:

“…the penetrations of U.S. military data are growing "exponentially," one of the key reasons the Pentagon recently set up the United States Cyber Command to beef up defenses.”

I’m eager to see the effectiveness of this new Command, given that in a 2008 Data Breach Investigations Report by the Verizon Business Risk Team, statistics taken over 4 years and including 500 breaches resulted in Payment Card Industry data (PCI) being breached in 84% of the cases. With such a systemic problem in both civilian and government data security a significant turn-around is required.