He made his comments at a daylong White House conference aimed at spurring corporate attention to, and spending on, the threat of computer assaults. Attending the conference, the first in a six-part regional series, were experts on corporate governance, auditors and senior executives. Instead, the Clinton administration has been pushing industry groups to share more data on network vulnerabilities both among themselves and with law enforcement and intelligence officials led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Summers cited the model of a center set up by 21 U.S. financial services firms last October.
Possible threats range from youthful hackers and criminals to guerrilla groups.
National Security Threat John Podesta, President Clinton's chief of staff, told the conference that building safer computer security practices was critical both to U.S. business and national security. But he said federal authorities were looking to the private sector to come up with information-security standards that might be required, for instance, to meet auditing guidelines or to get insurance.