On November 7th, 2011, Lolita Baldor reported for the AP that Richard Clarke, a former top US cybersecurity official, believes that US networks are so vulnerable to attack that it should deter US leaders from going to war. In fact, Clarke would advise the president against attacking countries like China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran because they could retaliate and destroy US critical infrastructure. In this scenario, a US president could blow up a terrorist training center, or perhaps a nuclear plant, but Clark believes a number of countries would respond with a cyberattack so that "the entire US system could be crashed in retaliation … because we can't defend it today."
Furthermore, Clarke envisions a scenario where the US military, which is entirely dependent on computer systems, could find itself in a future conflict where none of its equipment works. "I really don't know to what extent the weapon systems that have been developed over the last 10 years have been penetrated, to what extent the chips are compromised, to what extent the code is compromised." Clarke said. Clarke agreed with Gen. Keith Alexander in calling for the elimination of network vulnerabilities in US government, military, and corporate systems. However, Clarke was more strident in pushing for tougher government regulations to enforce such improvements, believing that the problem won't be fixed till government gets more involved. Finally, Clarke said that until the US demonstrates that there are consequences for massive espionage, countries like China will just keep on stealing.
The source article can be found here.
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