WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Six months after a U.S. cybersecurity bill died in the Senate, some Obama administration officials and lawmakers are optimistic they can get a new law passed amid heightened public awareness of hacking attacks and cyber espionage.

With top intelligence officials warning that cyber attacks have replaced terrorism as the leading threat against the United States, the White House and lawmakers have spent months discussing how to improve the flow of information between the government and the private sector.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top U.S. general in charge of cyber security warned on Tuesday that the United States is increasingly vulnerable to attacks like those that destroyed data on tens of thousands of computers in Saudi Arabia and South Korea in the past year.

Army General Keith Alexander, who heads the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, told the Reuters Cybersecurity Summit in Washington that U.S. computer networks were already under constant attack and billions of dollars worth of intellectual property were flowing out of the country each year.

WASHINGTON, May 14 (Reuters) – A global ATM heist targeting
two Middle Eastern banks that came to light last week is an
example of how easily financial crimes can be committed and
coordinated in cyberspace, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary
Janet Napolitano said on Tuesday.

“It demonstrates the kind and scope of financial crimes that
are enabled in a network-connected world, particularly by those
who have some skill although not necessarily the highest level
of skill, quite frankly, but who can coordinate timing and the
like,” Napolitano told the Reuters Cybersecurity Summit in
Washington.

WASHINGTON, May 7 (Reuters) – A group of senior U.S.
Republican and Democratic senators proposed a new law on Tuesday
to combat computer espionage and the theft of valuable
commercial data from U.S. companies.

The four powerful senators – Democrats Carl Levin and Jay
Rockefeller and Republicans John McCain and Tom Coburn – joined
together to launch the Deter Cyber Theft Act.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States was not given any warning before air strikes in Syria against what Western and Israeli officials say were weapons headed for Hezbollah militants, a U.S. intelligence official said on Sunday.

Without confirming that Israel was behind the attacks, the intelligence official said that the United States was essentially told of the air raids “after the fact” and was notified as the bombs went off.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel’s air strikes on Syria could add pressure on the Obama administration to intervene in Syria, a key Republican said on Sunday, but the U.S. government faces tough questions on how it can help without adding to the conflict.

Hours after Israeli jets bombed Syria on Sunday for the second time in 48 hours, several top U.S. lawmakers voiced concern over the cascading uncertainty in the Middle East where a civil war has been raging in Syria for more than two years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Department of Homeland Security, criticized for failing to check the student status of a Kazakh man charged in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, has tightened procedures for admitting foreigners with student visas, a U.S. official said on Friday.

The Department’s Customs and Border Protection issued a memo ordering agents “effective immediately” to check all students against the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System database of international students and schools, according to an official who had seen the memo.