CIA Director Leon Panetta Warns of Possible Cyber-Pearl Harbor

ABC News ^ | Feb 11, 2011 | By JASON RYAN

[robowombat]

"The potential for the next Pearl Harbor could very well be a cyber-attack," he testified on Capitol Hill Thursday

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also appeared, telling the committee, "This threat is increasing in scope and scale, and its impact is difficult to overstate."

........

Panetta told the committee, "This is a real national security threat that we have to pay attention to. I know there are a lot of aspects to it.

"The Internet, the cyber-arena ... is a vastly growing area of information that can be used and abused in a number of ways."

U.S. officials and computer security experts have faced a wide array of diverse and growing computer threats in the past several years, including attempted infiltrations of Defense Department computers, high- profile companies being hacked and the data breach and related cyber-attacks involving Wikileaks.

In particular:

The Pentagon disclosed last summer that in 2008 "malicious code" from a flash drive ended up on classified and unclassified systems of U.S. Central Command, which oversees the war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Entities in China were behind a highly sophisticated hacking of Google and more than 30 other companies in late 2009 that went undetected until January 2010. The hacking of Google's network was intended to gain access to the e-mail accounts of human rights activists in China.

Telecommunications companies in China displayed false computer data that rerouted about 15 percent of the world's online traffic last April through Chinese Internet servers for about 17 minutes, affecting NASA, the U.S. Senate, the four branches of the military, the office of the Secretary of Defense and a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Panetta's Stark Assessment

The FBI and private security experts tracked and traced large networks of "zombie-computers" dubbed

[robowombat]

While Panetta and Clapper are a dim pair this article is worth reading as the threat is real. In Nov 2008 something happened and all the main DOD and Service Staff computer access at the Pentagon went down simultaneously for several hours. There never was an officail explanation. The time selected was perfect as i9t was right after the presidential election and one party was heading for the exits and the other hadn't taken over. No one wanted to bother with the really unpleasant imp-lications of this event. (No one political anyway. Gates knew enough to keep his mouth shut in public. I suppose there was a major uproar in the C3I community and in the upper reaches of Defense and the services. Not a word leaked out so it was a really big deal and very serious.)

[WellyP]

Hyping for the “kill switch”!

[Steely Tom]

Hyping for the “kill switch”!

Yeah, if only Oahu had had a kill switch back in 1941, why, think of all the problems that could have been nipped in the bud.

In a manner of speaking.

[hiredhand]

Dumb-ass, clueless bean-counter alert -

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2676211/posts?page=12#12

[Terry Mross]

I’ve come to the conclusion that all the internet and software gurus are all government agents. I don’t believe a Harvard drop out could come up with Facebook and get it to be as big and as powerful as it is without government assistance. The same goes for Microsoft.

I do know the military had the internet in the 1960s, or maybe earlier, so is my theory that far out there? Maybe the government came up with all this as a way to control us.

So, if there’s a “Pearl Harbor Cyber Attack”, caused by the government, we’d all fall in line for more “patriot act” crap.

[MissDairyGoodnessVT]

well well well look at Leon-he finally came up for air

[DesertRhino]

This the same government that is working to give control of ICAN away to the UN?

[fieldmarshaldj]

I sure feel safe and secure with Peon Lanetta in charge.

[Migraine]

I think the cyber Pearl Harbor occurred a couple of years ago. I believe we are now at the cyber Guadalcanal phase.

[mmercier]

These bitches are going to take out the net, cell and all satellite service for a time. Probably on a global scale.

It will either be a hacker attack, or a frikin solar perfect storm. Awaiting the next possible scenario to manifest... Things have to occur in threes before they can become physical reality.

They are dropping these media turds about lately so those in the know remain unknown, and those in the dark will blame anyone but them with the capacity to coordinate and restore some order. If this can be pulled off, it will be the most fabulous thing in recorded history.

[JerseyHighlander]

Panetta and Clapper are on the Boeing, Cisco and other corporatist lobbies to implement the same NARUS suite of software/hardware used to shut down the internet in Egypt.

NARUS, subsidiary of Boeing, based in Sunnyvale, CA. Your new Internet overlords.

I for one, welcome our new security industrial complex overlords.

[Noob1999]

” Now for one $ trillion, I can protect you.

Just sign on this form over here!

[bigbob]

I could care less if Facebook gets hammered or even some big retail sites. What worries me is another Stuxnet, only one that targets control systems on our electrical grid. Bring that down for even a few days and you’ve got instant multi-billion dollar chaos.

[FlyingEagle]

Its a little late for that news: horse out of barn. The anarchists/anonymous are already hacking the government target computers in the revolution zone.

http://anonnews.org/?p=press&a=item&i=483

The hackers are attacking the servers in Libya, Bahrain and Yemen. Saudi is next. These people are organized and thrive on chaos. http://www.facebook.com/opfreedom

Yemen http://www.facebook.com/opyemen
Libya http://www.facebook.com/oplibya
Bahrain http://www.facebook.com/opbahrain
Iran http://www.facebook.com/opiran

Example Quote:

Operation Iran
Okay, Congrats EVERYONE! Mohakemeh.com is suspended! We hit them a little hard it seems.
http://www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8912010984

[23 Everest]

well well well look at Leon-he finally came up for air

---

What was he doing in Korea?

[Squawk 8888]

More than a little scaremongering. As a software professional I understand the vulnerabilities, but am keenly aware that humans have a tremendous ability to work around any breakdown.

[Squawk 8888]

As someone in the business, I can assure you that success stories like MS, Apple and Facebook really do have humble origins. It is true that the Internet began in the 1960s as a military project; the purpose was to create a communications network that would continue to function after multiple nuclear strikes. But the subsequent growth of the ‘net was due to the military opening the network to outsiders, first to universities and then to commercial interests. The web that we know today was only possible becayse of the thousands of private interests who sought to capitalize on its potential.

[lewislynn]

Isn’t this the same clown that got his Egypt “intel” from MSNBC, CNN news reports?...I thought so.

[TigersEye]

Does he mean something like an unknown person/entity suddenly selling off billions of dollars of stocks in hours? If so so what? No one considered that worth investigating even though it nearly tanked the world’s economies in one shot.

[freekitty]

And whose fault is that Leon?