The U.S. government must also develop effective means of responding through cyberspace to attacks on the nation's critical infrastructure, Kurtz said.

U.S. lawmakers have condemned attacks on government networks and intrusions into sensitive computers that appear to come from Internet addresses in China. Following the attacks on Estonia, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) created a center for formulating response strategies to cyber attacks.

"There are real questions around what is an act of war in cyberspace," Kurtz said. "We know that we have adversaries who are taking control of servers and using them to attack U.S. networks. I would argue that we need cyber means to stop those attacks rather than kinetic means."

Last, resolving which agency will be in charge during a massive Internet outage or other "Cyber Katrina" event should also be major concern, he argued. While Internet service providers have argued for the Federal Communications Commission to have a lesser role in managing the Internet, Kurtz argued that the agency's mission appears to make it the perfect candidate to respond to Internet issues.

"The FCC really has yet to step up to the plate to make sure that the nation's communications infrastructure is reliable, interoperates, and is secure," he said.

Because no agency has officially been tasked with responding to a significant event affecting the Internet, if something does happen, there will be a scrum among agencies that want to carry the ball, Kurtz said.

"The bottom line is, do we have a FEMA for the Internet? And I think the answer is, 'No, we don't,'" he said.

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