U.S. working to respond to growing cyber attacks

The United States is working to prevent attacks on military, government and private computer networks, but any aggressive response raises legal, civil rights and policy questions that should be addressed, a U.S. military adviser said on Tuesday.
At the moment, "there are no rules" about what government or private entities can do if their networks are attacked, said Andrew Palowitch, chief technology officer for Science Applications International Corp`s intelligence and security group and senior adviser to the Pentagon.
Given more than 37,000 attempted breaches of government and private programs and 80,000 attacks on military networks in fiscal 2007 alone, some would argue the United States was already in a "cyber war," he said in a speech at Georgetown University in Washington. He said he was not speaking for the Pentagon.