FBI concerned about 'cybergeddon' hitting US next.Byline: ANI New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , Jan.7 (ANI):Cyber attacks pose the greatest threat to the United States after nuclear war and weapons of mass destruction Weapons that are capable of a high order of destruction and/or of being used in such a manner as to destroy large numbers of people. Weapons of mass destruction can be high explosives or nuclear, biological, chemical, and radiological weapons, but exclude the means of transporting or - and they are increasingly hard to prevent, FBI experts say. Shawn Henry, assistant director of the FBI's cyber division, told a conference in New York that computer attacks pose the biggest risk "from a national security perspective, other than a weapon of mass destruction weapon of mass destruction (WMD) Weapon with the capacity to inflict death and destruction indiscriminately and on a massive scale. The term has been in currency since at least 1937, when it was used to describe massed formations of bomber aircraft. or a bomb in one of our major cities". "Other than a nuclear device or some other type of destructive weapon, the threat to our infrastructure, the threat to our intelligence, the threat to our computer network is the most critical threat we face," news.com.au quoted him as saying further. US experts warn of "cybergeddon", in which an advanced economy - where almost everything of importance is linked to or controlled by computers - falls prey to hackers, with catastrophic results. Michael Balboni, deputy secretary for public safety in New York state, described "a huge threat out there" against everything from banking institutions to municipal water systems and dams. Henry said terrorist groups aim for an online 9/11, "inflicting the same kind of damage on our country, on all our countries, on all our networks, as they did in 2001 by flying planes into buildings". A web attack of that scale has not yet happened in the US, but computer hacking - once something of a sport for brilliant delinquents - is rapidly evolving around the world as a weapon of war. (ANI) Copyright 2008 Asian News International The Asian News International (ANI) agency provides multimedia news to China and 50 bureaus in India. It covers virtually all of South Asia since its foundation and presently claims, on its official website, to be the leading South Asia-wide news agency. (ANI) - All Rights Reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |
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