Security expert: U.S. would lose cyberwar

[OhioChick]

February 23, 2010 05:19 PM ET

IDG News Service - The U.S. government, if confronted in a cyberwar today, would not come out on top, a former U.S. director of national intelligence said Tuesday.

"If the nation went to war today, in a cyberwar, we would lose," Mike McConnell told a U.S. Senate committee. "We're the most vulnerable. We're the most connected. We have the most to lose."

McConnell, director of national intelligence from 2007 to 2009, predicted that the U.S. government would eventually get heavily involved in protecting cybersecurity and in regulating private approaches to cybersecurity. Testifying before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, McConnell also predicted that the U.S. would make little improvements in its cybersecurity before a "catastrophic" attack will cause the government to get involved.

"We will not mitigate this risk," said McConnell, now executive vice president for the national security business at Booz Allen Hamilton. "We will talk about it, we will wave our hands, we'll have a bill, but we will not mitigate this risk."

After a major attack, the government will step in to secure the Internet, McConnell predicted. "We're going to morph the Internet from something that's referred to generally as dot-com to something that we call dot-secure," he said. "When transactions move billions of dollars, or when transactions route trains up and down the East Coast or control electric power ... the basic attributes of security must be endorsed."

More: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9161278/Security_expert_U.S._would_lose_cyberwar

[amborin]

1. we already are, it appears

just last month, many silicon valley corporations' computers were hacked, by hackers looking for proprietary source code; apparently the attacks were traced to china, by way of taiwan

[w4rma]

2. So quit outsourcing our programmers. (nt)

[mopinko]

3. bullshit

the us government has had top level people working on this shit for years. do you really think we are still in the basement with this shit? come on.
computer world, otoh, can't load a page.

[OhioChick]

5. Better source for you?

:eyes:

US would lose cyberwar: former intel chief
By Chris Lefkow (AFP) – 3 hours ago

WASHINGTON — The United States would lose a cyberwar if it fought one today, a former US intelligence chief has warned.

Michael McConnell, a retired US Navy vice admiral who served as ex-president George W. Bush's director of national intelligence, also compared the danger of cyberwar to the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

"If we went to war today in a cyberwar, we would lose," McConnell told a hearing Tuesday on cybersecurity held by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

"We're the most vulnerable, we're the most connected, we have the most to lose.

"We will not mitigate this risk," added McConnell, now an executive vice president for consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton's national security business. "And as a consequence of not mitigating this risk, we are going to have a catastrophic event."

Tuesday's hearing came a little over a month after Internet giant Google revealed that it and other US companies had been the target of a series of sophisticated cyberattacks originating in China.

"National security and our economic security are at stake," said Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller, the panel's chairman and a co-sponsor of a bill seeking to bolster public and private sector cybersecurity cooperation.

More: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5idcpI-eFNCzvuFP57bK1JztcgIbg

[mopinko]

7. this all just sounds like one of those

ooohhhh nooes! they coming to get us! we need more money!
i call bullshit.

[SnoopDog]

4. What a joke we are.... We (microsoft, etc) write the software yet

'our' code is bullcrap... a security breach waiting to happen...

Why? ever look at the "C" language? - no wonder things are all fucked up.

[bemildred]

6. Mike McConnell is not a security expert, and I doubt that he knows anything much

about how computers and networks work, or how one goes about "hacking", or about "cybersecurity", which is a very obscure term in itself.

[Demeter]

8. That's the Price for Outsourcing

too bad, so sad. Stupid idiots!