Computer-based attacks emerge as threat of future, general says

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/13/computer-based-attacks-emerge-as-threat-of-future-/

By Bill Gertz
The Washington Times
September 13, 2011

The general in charge of U.S. cyberwarfare forces said Tuesday that 
future computer-based combat likely will involve electronic strikes that 
cause widespread power outages and even physical destruction of 
thousand-ton machines.

Army Gen. Keith Alexander, commander of the new U.S. Cyber Command, also 
said that massive losses of private and public data in recent years to 
computer criminals and spies represent the largest theft in history.

Threats posed by cyber-attacks on computer networks and the Internet are 
escalating from large-scale theft of data and strikes designed to 
disrupt computer operations to more lethal attacks that destroy entire 
systems and physical equipment.

“That’s our concern about what’s coming in cyberspace - a destructive 
element,” Gen. Alexander, who is also the director of the National 
Security Agency, the electronic spying agency, said in a speech at a 
conference on cyberwarfare.

Gen. Alexander said two cases illustrate what could happen in an attack.

[...]

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