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The Obama administration, like the Bush team before it, have talked a great deal about the need to strengthen our ability to fend off attacks that target U.S. computers. How much should we worry, really?

Yesterday we heard from James Lewis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's just written a new report that concludes there is no chance another country or terrorist group will launch a major cyber attack against the U.S. anytime in the near future. Still, Lewis believes U.S. defenses against an Internet-based attack on its military and government computers, power grids and financial system are weak and need to be shored up to guard against future threats.

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There is no chance other countries or terrorist groups will launch an Internet-based attack against U.S. information systems in the near future, according to a new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Other countries have no political interesting in attacking the U.S. while terrorists don't likely possess the capability for a destructive cyber-war campaign, according to the Center's James Lewis.

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The U.S. posture on cyber warfare is largely defensive, with military geeks focused on preventing and mitigating Internet-based attacks on critical infrastructure. John Arquilla, professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, believes Pentagon code-slingers should alter their focus somewhat and team with International white hat hackers to disable the war-making capabilities of nations preparing to go to fight.

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Part 2 of our interview with Massoud Amin of the University of Minnesota

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The worry over coordinated cyber attacks against U.S. computer systems from foreign enemies or terrorists has been larger than any damage that's occurred so far, perhaps, but the bad guys are getting better and threats are growing, according to Massoud Amin, who heads a new master's program in security technologies at the University of Minnesota.

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President Obama has made it a top priority to assemble a White House-based team to fight Internet-based crime and defend the country against cyber attack, but first he has to find a person willing and able to lead the effort. Yesterday the interim cyber czar, Melissa Hathway, resigned, saying she's frustrated over the administration's delay in filling the post. Siobhan Gorman, intelligence correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, says some of the president's advisers had apparently turned against Hathaway.

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The United States has no clear policy on the use of digital weaponry to attack communications systems, financial networks and power grids, or to defend its own systems, according to a National Research Council panel of scientists and policy makers.

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The Internet is a second front in the war in Gaza, according to a cyber war researcher.

Hackers on both sides are waging a battle of words and vivid imagery by defacing Websites, according to Jart Armin with HostExploit.com. He says Israelis and Palestinians have been waging cyber war on and off since 2001, but now hackers are intensifying their Internet vandalizing campaign outside the Middle East.