Date: 2006-11-14
Speaker: LORETTA SANCHEZ (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Cali

fornia. Mr. Speaker. I thank my colleague from California for the time. I rise in strong support of House Resolution 993 and the goals and ideals of the National Cyber Security Awareness Month. and I am proud to be one of the original cosponsors of this resolution. I believe that raising awareness about the need to enhance computer and network security in the U.S. is a valuable tool to protect the identities and data. of all Americans. As the ranking member on the Ecconomic Security. Infrastructure Protection and Cyber Security Subcommittee on the Committee on Homeland Security. I have had an opportunity to work on critical issues related to cyber security. In the past. I have offered a number of amendments to various bills to increase our investment in cyber security research and development at the Department of Homeland Security. and I hope that in the next Congress we will make significant progress in this area. I believe that we need to pay more attention to the state of cyber security because it affects all of us. from the government and large corporations to small businesses and. of course. to indi.viduals. Our countrys infrastructure relies on secure information networks that ensure the reliable functioning of ev-. erything from public finance and control of water systems to the operation of electrical grids and emergency response systems. For all of us. all Americans. our information infrastructure is an integral part of our daily life. allowing us to communicate with friends and family. and pay bills and manage our business. Imagine. if we go to the ATM and our money is gone. and this all -leads back to some break in some network. At that point. we are going to realize just how important this is and how this can impact us on a daily basis. It is the reliance on these information networks. these networks that are so much a part of our lives. and that is why- it makes it such a great potential for targeted attacks by people who wish to harm us. And this type of attack would be devastating to our physical safety. as well as the economic security of our country. That is the reason I think that government needs to be a.leader in the field of cyber security. When I was talking to some of my companies about this. they said the simplest thing. abodt like over 50 percent of the people that use a network system do not use passwords. We should be using passwords. Those who use passwords may use something like the name of our dog or our pet. well. anybody who knows you can guess that or can get that name. So I went through and I changed my passwords. and I changed Gretsky off of my passwords and everything else. Why? Because we need to. These are very simple. individual things that we can do because if once a person gets into the network. it goes much wider than that and can go into banking institutions and can go into the House of Representatives. et cetera. So I urge my colleagues to support the goals and ideals of National Cyber Security Awareness Month. I hope every small business will take advantage of some of the free information with respect to making our networks safe.