Cyberattacks Bigger US Security Threat than Terrorism

A major cyberattack on the United States could cripple the country’s infrastructure and economy, warned a top spy agency, posing the most dangerous immediate threat to U.S. national security.

In his annual assessment of security threats, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the top national security threats are now in the cyber arena, ahead of global terrorist networks.

A major cyberattack on the United States could cripple the country’s infrastructure and economy, warned a top spy agency, posing the most dangerous immediate threat to U.S. national security.

In his annual assessment of security threats, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the top national security threats are now in the cyber arena, ahead of global terrorist networks.

Although the likelihood of a major attack remained “remote”, Clapper, who is in-charge of 16 intelligence agencies including the CIA, said that unsophisticated hackers might be able to damage some U.S. infrastructure such as power generation, but they would not be able to achieve wide-scale disruption.

“In some cases, the world is applying digital technologies faster than our ability to understand the security implications and mitigate potential risks,” he said, adding that the countries with the most advanced cyber capabilities, China and Russia, were unlikely to launch such an attack outside of a broader military conflict.

According to Clapper, the U.S. risked the same sort of “downward spiral” in intelligence capabilities that it witnessed before the September 11 attacks.

“The impact will be gradual and almost invisible, unless or until we have an intelligence failure,” he said in his testimony.

The potential risks from cyber attacks were underlined on Tuesday when JPMorgan Chase’s website suffered a “denial of service” attack that prevented customers from accessing their accounts, and the administration said it was probing what was claimed to be a leak of Michelle Obama’s personal information on a Russian website.

JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank by assets, is the latest in a series of US financial institutions to be attacked.

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On Monday, White House national security adviser Tom Donilon, citing complaints from U.S. businesses about alleged Chinese cyber espionage, said the issue is a growing challenge to economic relations between the United States and China.

In February, private U.S. computer security firm Mandiant issued a 60-page report accusing the secretive Chinese military of being behind hacking attacks on a wide range of American industries. China has denied the report and instead claims to be a victim of cyber spying by the U.S. government.

Clapper also used Tuesday’s hearing to warn of the financial pressures caused by automatic across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration. Due to funding cuts of almost $4 billion, Clapper said 5,000 intelligence contractors could be terminated and cyber security efforts compromised. “We may risk missing an early sign of an attack,” he said.

Intelligence agencies at a minimum want Congress to give them the authority to redistribute cuts among progammes “to minimise the damage,” he said. Clapper said under sequestration the intelligence agencies had much less flexibility than the Pentagon in how they implement the cuts: “No one is saying we will not take our fair share of cuts, but we need latitude in how they are implemented.”

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