Coleman said North American e-businesses could lose in excess of $400 million each day should such an attack bring down Internet services here.

"The failure of government agencies and enterprises to address such threats might be blamed on prevailing business attitudes and complacency," said Coleman, former chief strategist for Netscape Communications.

For instance, he noted that North American businesses spent more than $17.5 billion in security alarms for their buildings, but only $6.2 billion on information security measures.

"Many IT organizations will tell you either the threats are too far fetched or that they're adequately protected," Coleman said.

Deibert and Rafal Rohozinski, a principal of The SecDev Group, have the following proposal for the Canadian government: