America’s top intelligence official told lawmakers on Tuesday that Al Qaeda and its affiliates had made it a high priority to attempt a large-scale attack on American soil within the next six months.The assessment by Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, was much starker than his view last year, when he emphasized the considerable progress in the campaign to debilitate Al Qaeda and said that the global economic meltdown, rather than the prospect of a major terrorist attack, was the “primary near-term security concern of the United States.”
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But Mr. Blair began his annual threat testimony before Congress by saying that the threat of a crippling attack on telecommunications and other computer networks was growing, as 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.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/us/politics/03intel.htmlAlso see:US threatened by cyber attacks
The top United States intelligence chief says the US is at risk of a crippling cyber attack.In his annual threat assessment delivered to the US Congress, National Intelligence director Dennis Blair said the extent of malicious cyber activity was growing and critical US infrastructure was being threatened.”Malicious cyber activity is occurring on an unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication,” Mr Blair said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/04/2810584.htmCyber-warfare ‘is growing threat’
Cyber-warfare attacks on military infrastructure, government and communications systems, and financial markets pose a rapidly growing but little understood threat to international security and could become a decisive weapon of choice in future conflicts between states, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies warned yesterday.IISS director-general John Chipman said: “Despite evidence of cyber attacks in recent political conflicts, there is little appreciation internationally of how to assess cyber-conflict. We are now, in relation to the problem of cyber-warfare, at the same stage of intellectual development as we were in the 1950s in relation to possible nuclear war.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/03/cyber-warfare-growing-threat