The U.S. government, its infrastructure and private businesses are vulnerable to potentially major disruptive cybersecurity attacks, despite better preparation at the federal level, the director of the FBI said Tuesday.
“We’ve connected our entire lives to the Internet,” FBI Director James Comey told reporters. “So that’s where the bad people come.”
Mr. Comey’s comments come as the agency investigates recent hacks of information at Sony that drew national headlines after information about the company and its employees was either made public or destroyed.
Speculation about who was responsible for the attack has focused on North Korea, which publicly warned of retaliation if Sony released its upcoming film “The Interview,” which depicts a mission to kill the nation’s leader, Kim Jong-un.
The country has denied responsibility for the disruption and Mr. Comey said Tuesday the FBI is still working to thoroughly analyze all the data related to the breach before naming a suspect.
“Anything cyber, especially on this scale is very complicated, and so tracing back malware and signatures to try to associate them with a particular actor is complicated business,” Mr. Comey said. “I want to make sure before we make an attribution that I have high confidence in it.”
The director warned of complacency while fighting cyberattacks, and he said that as threats are evolving the protection needs to change as well.
“If you have a device connected to the Internet, you can’t ever have high confidence that you’re safe,” he said.
But Mr. Comey said he believes the federal government is getting better at combating cyber threats, with better communication between agencies like the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon.
• Phillip Swarts can be reached at pswarts@washingtontimes.com.
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