How Secure Is Cyberspace?

From CERT:

Cyberspace has become so woven into the fabric of our society that it's almost impossible to separate the "real" world from virtual reality without experiencing enormous loss qualitatively and quantitatively.

We shop, bank, pay bills, communicate, learn, research, plan, organize, collaborate, store photos, entertain ourselves, support ourselves, etc. in cyberspace. Our growing dependence on the virtual world presents risks and security challenges we've never seen before, so much so that securing cyberspace has become crucial to our everyday lives as well as our national security. Our nation is becoming more and more dependent on it for operating its critical infrastructures such as transportation, communication, finance, energy distribution etc. Currently our nation's vulnerability to attack and susceptibility to disaster is much too high.

The Committee on Improving Cybersecurity Research in the United States, responsible for publishing "Toward a Safer and More Secure Cyberspace" which can be read online for free, presents a better understanding of why cyberspace is as vulnerable as it is, and the research on new technologies and policies and their effective implementation to make things safer.