Obama: Cyber-security a prime challenge

PALO ALTO, Calif., Feb. 13 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama called cyber security a key challenge the United States faces in a Stanford University address Friday.

Addressing over 800 leaders of the Silicon Valley technology community in Palo Alto, Calif., Obama said, ""It's one of the great paradoxes of our time that the very technology that can be used to do great good can also be used to imperil us and do great harm. In all our work, we have to be sure we're protecting the privacy of the American people."

He urged government and industry to cooperate on sharing of information, and was preceded by Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook, who emphasized privacy guarantees, by Dept. of Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco, who warned of the cyber-threats and their increasing dangers, and by Anthony Early, CEO of the utility Pacific Gas & Electric, who referred to information-sharing ideas as "the new Manhattan Project, where the government and the private sector come together."

"To put it bluntly, the cyber-threat is becoming more diverse, more sophisticated and more dangerous. With as many as three billion Internet users around the world today, we have got to get this right," Monaco said.

Prior to the day-long cybersecurity summit at the university, the White House announced an executive order to encourage sharing of cybersecurity data within the private sector and with the government.

Earlier in the week the administration revealed a new agency, under the direction of Homeland Security, to unite information about cyber-threats, modeled after the National Counterterrorism Center, established after Sept. 11, 2001.

(Amy Connolly contributed to this report)