US to establish new cybersecurity agency over 'game changing' Sony hack

The US government is creating a new agency to monitor cyber security threats, pooling and analysing information on a spectrum of risks, White House counter-terrorism coordinator Lisa Monaco, said.

Speaking at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, Monaco said the Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center (CTIIC) will be an intelligence centre that will "connect the dots" between various cyber threats to the nation so that relevant departments and agencies are aware of these threats in as close to real time as possible.

President Obama has moved cybersecurity to the top of his 2015 agenda after recent hacking attacks against Sony Pictures, Home Depot, Anthem and Target, and the federal government itself.

Obama sees it as an area of cooperation with the Republican-led Congress.

Various federal agencies have cybersecurity components, including the National Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the CIA.

Monaco said the Obama administration is trying to connect the agencies.

"As President Obama said during the State of the Union last month, we will make sure our government integrates intelligence to combat cyber threats just as we have done to combat terrorism," she said.

The Obama administration likens the new agency to the National Counterterrorism Center established after the 9/11 attacks, following criticism that US intelligence agencies were not communicating with each other.

Monaco called last fall's attack on Sony Pictures "a game changer".

"Most concerning on the cyber front perhaps is the increasingly destructive and malicious nature of cyber attacks, as we saw with Sony Pictures Entertainment last fall. This attack stole large amounts of data and rendered inoperable thousands of Sony's computers and servers.

"It was a game changer. Because it wasn't about profit. It was about a dictator trying to impose censorship and prevent the exercise of free expression. At bottom it was about coercion, which the United States believes is unacceptable and which is why we took the extraordinary step of publicly identifying North Korea as responsible for the attack and responded swiftly, imposing additional sanctions of Kim Jong Un's regime," she said.

"In short, the threat is becoming more diverse, more sophisticated and more dangerous. And, I worry that malicious attacks like the one on Sony pictures will increasingly become the norm, unless we adapt quickly and take a comprehensive approach just as we have in other contexts."

Congress has tried for years to pass legislation to encourage companies to share data from cyberattacks with the government and each other, but efforts were stymied by liability issues and privacy concerns of citizens.

Last month, Obama proposed legislation to strike a balance, offering liability protection to companies that provide information in near real time to the government, while requiring them to strip it of personal data.