In closed-door briefings in a SCIF inside the Capitol, several senior administration officials—Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security; Robert Mueller, then FBI director; General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence—tried to persuade senators that the cyber threat to the nation’s critical infrastructure was dire. “For the record, if we were attacked, we would lose,” McConnell told the senators. The government needed the private sector’s help.
