Power lines and infrastructure were ravaged this week from a pummeling by Hurricane Sandy, emulating what experts warn cyber-terrorists might soon do to America’s grid. Despite those fears, though, a new report says the feds are as unready as ever.
Congress, the White House, Pentagon and politicians across the US have only ramped-up calls for stronger cyber-defense as of late, with President Barack Obama expected to sign his name to an executive order at any moment putting into place a program that government says is necessary to secure America’s infrastructure from foreign hackers. Even after weeks and months of ramped-up warnings, though, Defense Department officials speaking to FCW Magazine say the United States has not made any significant strides in preparing for the worst.
When Sandy made her way up the East Coast this week, highways were shut down, ATMs went offline and electricity to some of the country’s largest cities was cut unexpectedly — exactly what a cyberattack from an American adversary could theoretically cause with only a few clicks of a mouse. But while Mother Nature might be a force to be reckoned with on her own, the abilities of cyber terrorists shouldn’t be anything to laugh at.
Earlier this month, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said a “cyber Pearl Harbor” would soon hit America, sending the country into a war that it has all-but-certainly started on its own. The US is suspected to be one of the major players behind an operation that has targeted the computers at Iranian nuclear facilities using malicious viruses and worms, with a retaliation from the Islamic Republic all but expected now.
“Over the past three years, the Iranian regime has invested heavily in both defensive and offensive capabilities in cyberspace. Equally significant, its leaders now increasingly appear to view cyber warfare as a potential avenue of action against the United States,” Ilan Berman, vice president of American Foreign Policy Council, said earlier this year. As recently as earlier this month, US officials specifically blamed Iranian hackers with cyber-assaults on the servers of Capital One Financial Corp. and BB&T Corp, two of America’s biggest banking institutions.
Still, the country’s hasn’t found a sound solution just yet.
“We don’t have all the capacity and the right sets of skills that we need to do all that’s required,” Army Maj. Gen. John Davis, senior military adviser for cyber to the undersecretary of defense at the Pentagon tells FCW. “In the department we are still struggling to fully define and empower the cyber workforce. It’s a big challenge, just to define the techniques.”

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