President Bush has granted US intelligence agencies extended powers to monitor Internet traffic in order to combat a growing number of attacks on US federal departments’ IT systems.

Under a directive signed by Bush this month, US intelligence agencies will be able to monitor traffic on all federal agencies’ computer networks, reports the Washington Post. The directive extends the intelligence agencies’ surveillance purview across networks previously unmonitored.

The directive marks the beginning of a comprehensive initiative to guard US federal computer networks against a range of recurrent attacks, including network intrusions, hacking attacks and data theft.

A taskforce, headed up by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, will lead efforts to identify the source of cyber-attacks.

The Department of Homeland Security will take responsibility for protecting systems, and the Pentagon will develop strategies for counter-attack, reports the Post.

The news follows a catalogue of probes and intrusions into US military and government networks, the majority of which have been traced back to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – the extremely cyber-active Chinese military.

In late August 2007 it emerged that the Chinese military successfully penetrated Pentagon networks in June 2007, prompting President Bush to admit that “a lot” of US systems were “vulnerable” to attack.

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