Lawmakers: Cyberattacks pose greatest terrorist threat

Lawmakers on Friday warned that the United States is not prepared for an attack by terrorists in any form, whether chemical, biological or nuclear. But cyberterrorism, they added, may pose the largest threat because it is the most revolutionary.

"It's difficult, if not impossible," for the Defense Department and the country to keep pace with the technology used to penetrate national security systems," said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., who heads the Military Research and Development Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, at a press conference Friday. "Our enemies and our would-be enemies are working very hard at cyberterrorism.... They're trying to level the playing field because they know they can't beat us tank for tank, plane for plane."

Weldon and other lawmakers spoke at a news conference to mark the release of four new reports on national defense released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). The reports, part of the CSIS Homeland Defense Project, cover terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, cyber threats, missile defenses and policy integration.

With the recent proliferation of computer bugs like the "I Love You" virus, the "breeding" of computer hackers in countries like Russia and the arrival of the Next Generation Internet-an always-on broadband connection-the "Cyber Threats and Information Security" report on cyber terrorism concluded that there are no "insurance policies" against cyber intrusions.

The report recommends that the government and the private sector share more information on vulnerabilities and that the government provide the private sector with incentives for improving its security.

"As a nation, we have been reluctant to realize or accept that we are vulnerable to a different form of state-sponsored warfare or terrorism from small groups that could bring devastating consequences to America's door step," said Kansas Republican Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Roberts met earlier this week with Vice President-elect Dick Cheney and said he thinks President-elect George W. Bush's administration "will work very quickly [on this], and I can't think of a better blueprint" than the CSIS recommendations. Roberts added that he and other senators plan to schedule hearings on cyberterrorism in January or February.

On Tuesday, the Gilmore Commission, an advisory panel on cyberterrorism headed by Virginia GOP Gov. James Gilmore, released the second of three yearly reports on cyberterrorism and recommended the creation of an executive-branch office and congressional committees to oversee ways to combat the threat. The panel's report states that "the most likely perpetrators of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure are terrorists and criminal groups rather than nation-states."

Richard Clarke, the national coordinator for security infrastructure protection and counter-terrorism for the National Security Council, said in a White House press conference Friday that there is an increasing problem in the United States of extortion originating overseas. "The borders that used to protect us against this sort of international phenomenon are increasingly less significant," he said, "and particularly in cyberspace there are no borders."