If you want to see a big price tag, take a look at the Pentagon's bill for the cost of repairing its computers from the damage done by cyber attacks. In the last six years, the Pentagon has spent more than $100 million, not on new technology or weapon systems, but on repairing the damage done its computers from cyber attacks that occur almost every day.

The Pentagon is just beginning to put a dollar amount on these costs, according to Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton. But the attacks do not discriminate against any one target in particular; they go after military networks from the Pentagon to U.S. military installations around the world.

"The important thing is that we recognize that we are under assault from the least sophisticated--what I would say the bored teenager--all the way up to the sophisticated nation-state, with some pretty criminal elements sandwiched in-between," said Chilton, adding that the motivations include everything from vandalism to espionage. "This is indeed our big challenge, as we think about how to defend it."

The question is how and how much? And there's no immediate answer from the military on how to do it best. The likely answer from military leaders is investing more money into the military computer defenses rather than wasting it on repairs. But until the military figures out which way to attack this problem, more money will just be thrown into a big black hole that will fix a problem that will occur again and again.

For more on upgrading the Pentagon's cyberdefenses:
- check out this CIO Today article