The Obama administration has a lot of issues to address, from the economy, to the health care system, to foreign policy and security. Recent investigations have revealed that a series of U.S. agencies and institutions have been targeted for potential cyber-attacks in the past year. Among these targets were some of the most important financial institutions, but also NASA, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security.

In a report made public on Monday on Capitol Hill, a commission of technology experts revealed critical guidelines for the Obama administration, which will help the White House tackle the problem of cyber-attacks. The report includes 22 recommendations that the Obama administration should take into consideration starting January 2009.

According to a September testimony by James Lewis, director and senior fellow with the CSIS Technology and Public Policy Program, the commission’s starting point for the recommendations was the lack of cyber-security and the loss of information, which caused “unacceptable damage” to the United States.

Among the findings of the commission were two important aspect: one, that cyber-security has become one of the most important national security challenges for the United States, and two, that the U.S. is not organized and lacks a coherent national strategy to address this problem.

The commission recommended the next administration develop a comprehensive national security strategy for cyberspace, reorganize the governance of cyberspace to provide accountability and authority, rebuild relationships with the private sector, modernize cyberspace authorities, and use regulation and federal acquisitions to shape markets.

The commission pleaded for more openness from the Obama administration, as opposed to the Bush administration, whose most recent national cyber-security plan was covered up in secrecy. It will take the joint effort of the Executive Office of the president, and various agencies, to create a new approach to address cyber-security challenges.

“This will be at least part of the template of the incoming team and part of the template for the incoming Congress,” James Lewis said, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

As President-elect Barack Obama noted in his Homeland Security Fact Sheet, the United States’ information networks are under constant and increasing attack from foreign nations, terrorist organizations, and organized crime groups, and the national security infrastructure in place is ineffective in protecting them.

“Today our nation still lacks a long-term strategy to address proliferating cyber espionage,” Obama’s fact sheet writes, emphasizing on the Bush administration’s slow reaction to the risks associated to cyberspace.

Both the commission and Obama seem to be on the same track at this point, and the good news is the Obama administration seems to be willing to tackle this issue in a different manner from that of the Bush administration. However, the Obama team did not make any comments on the report presented Monday on Capitol Hill.