The commander of the military’s new U.S. Cyber Command said digital
attacks are evolving from disrupting network functions to destructive
strikes.
Army Gen. Keith Alexander, the Cybercom commander who is also head of the National Security Agency electronic spy service, said current forms of attack emanate from nation states, criminals, hackers, and others, and mainly disrupt temporarily the work of computer networks and systems.
“What I am concerned about and what I think we really need to be concerned about is when these transition from disruptive to destructive attacks, and I think those are coming,” Alexander said during remarks Monday to the American Enterprise Institute.
Such attacks are capable of destroying key elements of a system to the point where the equipment cannot be repaired and must be replaced, such as if a computer’s Basic Input Output System, or BIOS, or other system software is destroyed, he said.
“Those are coming up, and we have to be ready for that,” the four-star general said.
Alexander said the number of cyber attacks on networks is growing. Last year, cyberattacks increased 44 percent and malicious software production increased by 60 percent.
Significantly, attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure—the networks that control such systems as the electrical power grid and financial system—rose from nine in 2009 to more than 160 in 2011.
Among the companies that have been hacked are Google, the government contractor Booz Allen, AT&T, Visa, MasterCard, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he said.
Japanese companies Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nissan also were hacked.
“They’re the ones that know they’re being hacked,” Alexander said. “Our experience is that when FBI and others look into it, they find out that there are more than a hundred companies, for every one that knows they’ve been hacked, that doesn’t know they’ve been hacked. That’s significant.”
Read more: http://freebeacon.com/cyber-war/
Army Gen. Keith Alexander, the Cybercom commander who is also head of the National Security Agency electronic spy service, said current forms of attack emanate from nation states, criminals, hackers, and others, and mainly disrupt temporarily the work of computer networks and systems.
“What I am concerned about and what I think we really need to be concerned about is when these transition from disruptive to destructive attacks, and I think those are coming,” Alexander said during remarks Monday to the American Enterprise Institute.
Such attacks are capable of destroying key elements of a system to the point where the equipment cannot be repaired and must be replaced, such as if a computer’s Basic Input Output System, or BIOS, or other system software is destroyed, he said.
“Those are coming up, and we have to be ready for that,” the four-star general said.
Alexander said the number of cyber attacks on networks is growing. Last year, cyberattacks increased 44 percent and malicious software production increased by 60 percent.
Significantly, attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure—the networks that control such systems as the electrical power grid and financial system—rose from nine in 2009 to more than 160 in 2011.
Among the companies that have been hacked are Google, the government contractor Booz Allen, AT&T, Visa, MasterCard, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he said.
Japanese companies Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nissan also were hacked.
“They’re the ones that know they’re being hacked,” Alexander said. “Our experience is that when FBI and others look into it, they find out that there are more than a hundred companies, for every one that knows they’ve been hacked, that doesn’t know they’ve been hacked. That’s significant.”
Read more: http://freebeacon.com/cyber-war/
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