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A ‘cyber –czar’ to protect US computer networks

President Obama has unveiled a new White House office dedicated to protecting America’s computer networks, a Washington report says.

The Head of   Cyber Security will report to the National Security Council and the National Economic Council, reflecting the importance of computers to the economy.

 ‘It’s now clear this cyber-threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation’, he said remarking that in today’s world acts of terror could come not only from a few extremists in suicide vests but ‘from a few key strokes of a computer’.

Cyber crime had cost Americans more than $8 billion in the past two years.  In one attack last year, thieves used stolen credit card information to steal millions of dollars from 130 cash machines in 49 cities worldwide — in only 30 minutes.

The civilian ‘cyber-czar’ will be appointed as the Pentagon is close to announcing a new military command for cyberspace to defend the US military’s networks in addition to going on the offensive against terrorist computer networks and worldwide hackers, especially in China,  The Times reported.

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