At a July 26 Capitol Hill briefing, CERIAS Executive Director Eugene Spafford forecasted a grim future for national cybersecurity. Spaf predicted a growing threat from organized crime, more incidents of identity theft, national level incidents, and a major drain on the economy.

“It’s really awful,” Spafford lamented, citing that more than 100,000 known viruses exist, with about 200 new ones being reported each week.Spaf called for an increase in cyber security spending in order to deal with these challenges and prevent major attacks.

He said that in order to protect itself, the country needs “out-of-the-box” thinking and increased resources allotted to “risky but often high-payoff” research. He predicted that “it’s going to take a very large and significant failure” of critical computer systems nationwide to raise public awareness and support of increased security measures.

The IEEE-sponsored event was intended to raise congressional staff members’ awareness of the importance of cyber security. It was reported in an IEEE publication and in an article in Red Herring.