Obama calls on Silicon Valley to thwart cyber attacks

Associated Press

PALO ALTO, Calif.

Cyberspace is the new “Wild West,” President Barack Obama said Friday, with everyone looking to the government to be the sheriff. But he told the private sector it must do more to stop cyber attacks aimed at the U.S. every day.

“Everybody is online, and everybody is vulnerable,” Obama said during a White House cybersecurity summit at Stanford University, just miles from Google, Facebook, Intel and other Internet giants.

“The business leaders here want their privacy and their children protected, just like the consumer and privacy advocates here want America to keep leading the world in technology and be safe from attacks,” he said.

Partnering with the federal government is a hard sell in the Silicon Valley. The pace of innovation in California’s tech hub outstrips Beltway bureaucracy, and tech firms chafe at regulations that could limit their reach.

Further, disclosures from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden exposing sweeping U.S. government surveillance programs have angered many. The programs tapped into data from firms including Google and Yahoo.

“There’s a drastic collective disconnect that I think the administration is working hard to bridge,” said Amy Zegart, co-director of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.