http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO60566,00.html

U.S. senator: Cyberattacks could 'devastate' nation

By PATRICK THIBODEAU

(May 14, 2001) WASHINGTON -- While President Bush pushes for a strong defense against a missile attack, a U.S. senator who led the Y2k effort in Congress warned today that a cyberattack by a hostile nation could be as disruptive as a nuclear missile exploding over a U.S. city.

Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah), a leading congressional evangelist on critical infrastructure protection issues, also called on U.S. civilian agencies to adopt the "red team/blue team" models used by the defense agencies to test their information security defenses. In such tests, red teams are the attacking forces, while blue teams are the defending side.

"The big threat to our security comes from hostile nation states that can muster sufficient resources to make a concerted significant assault on America," Bennett said today at a conference here co-sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.

Bennett said these foreign cyberattackers aren't going to attack the U.S. military or its intelligence agencies, where defenses are strong, but would instead aim for the banking system and other targets. If, for example, they managed to shut down Fedwire, the Federal Reserve's fund transfer system, it could mean that "no checks will clear, no money can be transferred, no financial transactions can take place in the United States. That will devastate the United States more than a nuclear device set off over a large city," said Bennett. "It will cause more long-term havoc."

Bennett reiterated his point in response to a question following his talk, saying that a successful attack that shuts down Fedwire "could bring the nation to its knees."

A Bush administration official, John Sopko, a deputy assistant secretary for administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce, said the administration "has been taking definite steps" to elevate the importance of critical infrastructure protection.

In particular, the Bush administration last week said it was working with federal agencies to prepare an updated plan to protect U.S. government agencies and private-sector businesses from attack. The administration said the plan will involve the private sector and said meetings have already been held with officials involved in banking and finance, electric power, rail transportation, oil and gas, state and local law enforcement, and the IT sector.

On April 24, the Bush administration said it would review how the government is organized to deal with security issues and will seek an "integrated approach," said Sopko, who also spoke at the conference today.

Although he praised the Bush administration's recent efforts on this issue, Donald Upson, Virginia's secretary of technology, was also critical of the government's approach to critical infrastructure protection so far. "We don't know today, exactly, what the role of the federal government is in protecting that infrastructure.

"There has to be a management focus, and that management focus has to go at the highest level of government," said Upson.

-- (news@of.note), May 16, 2001

Answers

Nice of Sen. Bennett to publicly disclose the best place to hit us in order to "bring us to our knees".

I'm quite sure I'm not the only one who didn't previously know that little tidbit.

Dan V.

-- Jimmy Splinters (jsplinters@earthlink.net), May 16, 2001.

it does seem that the USA has a bad habit of'bending over in the shower''

-- al-d (dogs@zianet.com), May 16, 2001.