前程百利小编为大家带来托福阅读材料。网络安全是大家比较关注的话题。文章的难词已经标示出来，希望大家可以学习到相关知识，并通过不断的阅读练习提高自己的托福阅读能力。
Hackers defaced(涂污，丑化) Creole’s Face book page this week with some offensive and off-color(下流的，污言秽语的) posts(名词，指在社交网站上发布的东西;后文有动词用法，意为发布;大家玩微博的时候，会发现有些人在转发微博时称原微博博主为pod主，这里的“pod”就是post的缩略) that no parent would want children to see. Separately, intruders managed to hijack the YouTube and Twitter accounts of U.S. Central Command, posting videos and documents to taunt(奚落，笑话) the military. Both cyber attacks were symbolic(具有象征意义的) annoyances rather than real threats; neither caused damage to national security or corporate data. But they are nonetheless symbolism worthy of attention — a warning of the deep and continuing crisis in cyber security(网络安全).
The good news is that President Obama and the new Congress have been talking sense about taking action in recent days. The impact of the wholesale looting(大额业务，批发业务;这里指后文所提到的数据的大规模泄露) and destruction of data from Sony Pictures Entertainment, which the United States has attributed to agents of North Korea, has clearly sunken(被领会). After two successive congressional sessions deadlocked(陷入僵局) on the issue, it was encouraging to see the chairmen and ranking minority members of the homeland security and intelligence committees in both houses expressing a desire this week to move on cyber security legislation. Mr. Obama said in his meeting with congressional leadership on Tuesday that “this is an area where we can work hard together and get somelegislation done.”
But this task is going to take more than good vibes(氛围，感觉). Cyber attackers are outrunning(超出，胜过) defenses, and the Sony Pictures disaster underscores(强调) how vulnerable(易受损害) the private sector has become. The president offered this week legislative proposal to encourage the sharing of information about threats between the vulnerable private sector and the U.S. government, and to offer companies some targeted liability protection. House and Senate efforts last year also revolved around this kind of information-sharing. Although we have endorsed such legislation, it is not a magic bullet(与silver bullet同义，灵丹妙药) to end the wave of thefts, intrusions and cyber espionage(网络谍报活动;espionage是谍报活动). Even if Congress had acted, it is not clear that it would have prevented the Sony Pictures hack.
Legislation is a start and still a worthy goal. As a practical matter, however, before any legislation can pass Congress, persistent worries about privacy protection — which led to the defeat of previous bills(提案) — have to be debated and addressed. There is a vast gulf(分歧) of distrust of government, especially following the Edward Snowden revelations about the National Security Agency’s data collection. Yet as the president said this week, “Neither government nor the private sector can defend the nation alone.” They have to work together.
What’s really needed now is a harder edge to thinking about how to prevent another hack like that of Sony Pictures. What if the next onslaught(攻击) wipes out the computers and switches off lights in a major metropolitan(大城市的) hospital or transit system? This analysis needs to find new ideas and methods for creating effective defenses against cyber attacks. It haste come not only from Congress and the White House but also, dare we say, from the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, and from all institutions and facets of society(社会各界) that have grown so heavily dependent on digital highways.
以上就是前程百利小编为大家带来的托福阅读材料，平时的阅读练习是托福考试阅读备考的重要一环。希望大家利用好每份材料，尽可能多地从中获取知识。预祝大家托福考试取得好成绩。
