Unfortunately, the cyber threat to 'the grid' is only one means of eviscerating the soft underbelly of American society. Another which has been getting increasing attention could be delivered via the kind of nuclear-armed ballistic missile that Iran and North Korea have been developing: a strategic electro-magnetic pulse attack.
Look at what is happening in China and in Russia. They have units that are specifically targeted cyber warfare. They are carrying it out. Our critical infrastructure is attacked thousands of times a day.
Everybody should want to make sure that we have the cyber tools necessary to investigate cyber crimes, and to be prepared to defend against them and to bring people to justice who commit it.
The destructive malware attack against Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) in late 2014 was an unprecedented cyber event for the United States in its scope, destructiveness, and economic implications. The FBI responded to this attack with an investigation that was groundbreaking in its scope and collaboration.
We in the FBI have created a malware repository and analysis tool known as the Binary Analysis Characterization and Storage System, or BACSS, which provides near real-time investigative information. BACSS helps us link malware in different jurisdictions and paint a picture of cyber threats worldwide.
There are two kinds of people in America today: those who have experienced a foreign cyber attack and know it, and those who have experienced a foreign cyber attack and don't know it.
Cyber terrorism could also become more attractive as the real and virtual worlds become more closely coupled, with automobiles, appliances, and other devices attached to the Internet.
If we take as given that critical infrastructures are vulnerable to a cyber terrorist attack, then the question becomes whether there are actors with the capability and motivation to carry out such an operation.
I understand that computers, which I once believed to be but a hermaphrodite typewriter-cum-filing cabinet, offer the cyber literate increased ability to communicate. I do not think this is altogether a bad thing, however it may appear on the surface.
Stuxnet, a computer worm reportedly developed by the United States and Israel that destroyed Iranian nuclear centrifuges in attacks in 2009 and 2010, is often cited as the most dramatic use of a cyber weapon.
