>From China, With Love: Cyberwar the Next Big Threat to the U.S.?


September 26, 2007 6:12 PM

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/from-china-with.html

Brian Ross and Vic Walter Report:

 
<http://blogs.abcnews.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/09/26/fromchinawith_mn.j
pg> Fromchinawith_mn The White House is preparing a new initiative to
protect against what it fears could be a crippling attack against the U.S.
by computer, from overseas, and in particular, from China.   

After a series of cabinet-level meetings this month at the White House,
computer security analysts say the Bush administration is considering
creating a new agency or cyberwar center to better protect the federal
government's computers and find ways to help private companies and public
utilities fend off computer attacks.

Those attacks, which could be just a few key strokes away, could shut down
U.S. power grids and communication and banking systems, security analysts
warn.

"Basically we would find the lights go out, the dial tone stop and we have
no ability to access our money," Sami Saydjari, founder and president of the
Cyber Defense Agency, told ABC News.

Internet security companies, such as Akamai in Boston, are currently
tracking thousands of attacks against the U.S. government and corporate
computer systems every day.

"We would not be in a good situation if we were to enter a cyberwar today,"
Akamai co-founder and chief scientist Tom Leighton said. 

On most days, the single biggest source of those attacks is China.

"A Chinese general has talked about how they would reach out through
cyberspace and turn off the American electric power grid before any conflict
with the United States," said Dick Clarke, a former White House
counterterrorism official and now ABC News consultant.

White House advisors say alarm bells sounded when this past June Chinese
hackers got into the unclassified computers of Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates.

"The intelligence community has come to the recognition that China and other
foreign governments have free run of American computer networks," Clarke
said.

In addition to long-distance hacking, U.S. experts are concerned
Chinese-made computer equipment could be sabotaged in ways that are
undetectable, the so-called Trojan horse attack.

"My fear is that there are many, many Trojan horses, many, many malicious
codes in a large number of our critical systems," Saydjari said. "And that
there are just waiting to be activated through some trigger at some time."  

The White House says it is asking for $6 billion in the latest budget to
increase cybersecurity.

 <http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/BrianRoss/page?id=3247430> Do you have a tip
for Brian Ross and the Investigative Team?

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