White House: Military Can Be Used in Cyberattack

The White House on Monday said that the U.S. will work with other nations to make the Internet more secure—and emphatically said that if necessary, the U.S. will use the military to strike back if a cyberattack threatens national security. The global plan comes on the heels of the so-called Arab Spring, which many have said Internet freedom played a huge role in, and it aims to create international guidelines for cybercrime and also government regulation. The White House stressed the importance of Internet freedom, and called on other nations to allow the Internet to be “open and free and accessible and an economic engine to all people,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.