Friday, March 24, 2000

Bennett takes on a new threat

He warns that next U.S. war will be a cyber-attack By Lee Davidson Deseret News Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON  With lessons learned while he was the Paul Revere of the year 2000 computer problem, Sen. Bob Bennett is riding out again to warn of another new cyber-threat.

The Utah Republican says the next world war may not be fought with tanks and missiles but by enemy hackers attacking the nation's computers to bring everything from utilities to commerce to a standstill.

"The most vulnerable country in the world to this kind of attack is the United States of America because we have the most advanced capabilities," he said Thursday during a speech to a U.S. Chamber of Commerce conference on cyber-security. Bennett said addressing the Y2K threat showed him how interconnected all of the nation's computers are. He said that helped him and others realize "a cyber-attack one place can bring down services in all the other places in the world." Hints of how vulnerable companies and governments are, he said, have occurred in recent weeks as hackers have temporarily shut down dozens of Internet businesses.

Still, Bennett said, "the problem is not the hacker. The problem is not the 17-year-old. He or she can cause difficulties, can shut down Amazon.com for a few hours and disrupt things but ultimately will not bring this economy to an end." He said the big threat would be if "a possible major state . . . would develop the resources for a concentrated, continuing and sophisticated attack over time." Bennett added, "In my opinion, the next war will be this target rather than the traditional" weapons of war. Worse, Bennett said government and business are not structured well to protect against such a threat. He said the defense would require "horizontal thinking" across numerous jurisdictional boundaries created to contend with older style threats from days before money and information moved across political boundaries at lightning speed. For example, he said Senate committees that have some oversight of cyber-threats include Judiciary, Armed Services, Foreign Relations, Governmental Affairs, Commerce and Banking. He said the chairmen could view themselves as in charge, but non-coordinated efforts could spell disaster. Bennett said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott realized that and asked Bennett to head a GOP High-Tech Task Force to coordinate efforts across traditional boundaries, much as Y2K work was also coordinated with a special committee.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,155012570,00.html?

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 26, 2000