NEW YORK, Jan 12 (Reuters) - A top federal prosecutor has a
message for companies: If you've been hacked, tell us.
Speaking at a cyber security conference in New York on
Thursday, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said companies
should trust in the discretion of prosecutors and the FBI and
come forward with information about a security breach, rather
than keep it an internal secret.
"When industry delays or minimizes, it is harder to assess
vulnerabilities and harder to formulate solutions," Bharara
said. "When industry delays unduly in disclosing to us, or
minimizes, it is that much harder to get the bad guy."
Cyber security experts say that corporations rarely
acknowledge breaches, and often keep them secret from law
enforcement out of fear that news of a compromise will damage
their reputation, hurt stock prices and possibly lead to further
attacks.
Bharara addressed that fear, calling it unacceptable in the
face of increasingly virulent cyber attacks.
Trying to maintain secrecy was "the equivalent of sticking
one's head in the sand," Bharara said. "Get over it."
In January 2010, Google Inc acknowledged that it
had been the victim of a cyber attack, reporting that it was
one
of at least a score of major corporations that had been
targeted
by hackers in China.
Security experts have since said that they notified dozens
of other companies that they were also victimized by the same
hackers, but only a handful have acknowledged that they were
involved in what has become known as the Aurora attacks.
Once cases come to court, however, federal prosecutors in
Manhattan have on some occasions gone to great lengths to help
preserve company secrets.
When a now-jailed former programmer at Goldman Sachs was
tried in Manhattan federal court on charges he stole
computer code for the investment bank's high-frequency trading
platform, prosecutors asked the judge to seal certain
proceedings to preserve the secrecy of Goldman's system from
competitors.
(Reporting by Basil Katz and Jim Finkle)
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