Director of national intelligence Dennis C. Blair, told lawmakers on Tuesday (02/03/2010) the prospect of a major terrorist attack on America, was the “primary near-term security concern of the United States.” The New York Times reports that Mr. Blair began his annual threat testimony before Congress by saying that the threat of crippling cyberattacks on telecommunications and other computer networks was growing. America’s top intelligence official told Congress that an increasingly sophisticated group of enemies had “severely threatened” the sometimes fragile systems undergirding the country’s information infrastructure. “Malicious cyberactivity is occurring on an unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication,” he told the committee.
He said that the surge in cyberattacks, including the penetration of Google’s servers from inside China, was a “wake-up call” for those who dismissed the threat of computer warfare. “Sensitive information is stolen daily from both government and private-sector networks, undermining confidence in our information systems, and in the very information these systems were intended to convey,” Mr. Blair said The NYT says Mr. Blair’s emphasis on the threat points up the growing concerns among American intelligence officials about the potentially devastating results of a coordinated attack on the nation’s technology apparatus, sometimes called a “cyber-Pearl Harbor.”
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.