On Feb. 21st, 2012, Don Reisinger wrote for CNET on the hacker group Anonymous. The CNET article primarily referenced a WSJ report on the same topic; the WSJ report is sometimes behind a pay wall, so I'll reference both.
According to CNET, Gen. Keith Alexander (head of US CyberComm/NSA) has expressed his worries about Anonymous behind closed doors. Specifically, Gen. Alexander is worried about Anonymous' growth, and fears that Anonymous could decide to target the U.S. power grid within the next few years. Anonymous probably couldn't put a sustained attack together, but would be able to cause the grid trouble "for a limited period of time."
The CNET article noted that Anonymous has not said that it plans to attack the power grid. Moreover, attacking the power grid doesn't really jive with Anonymous' aims of protecting civil liberties. Nevertheless, Anonymous has gotten increasingly frisky: it recently targeted the CIA's website, the Mexican Senate's website, Syrian President Bashar al Assad's personal e-mail account, the DOJ, the RIAA, and a whole host of other entities. Additionally, there is a subset of Anonymous that thrives on chaos; attacking the electric grid might not be a huge stretch.
The WSJ article had two additional points. The first was a quote from James Lewis, CSIS (he always has the best quotes): "[Anonymous attacking the electric grid] is a real threat . . . You want to occupy Wall Street? How about turn Wall Street off?"
The second point: stopping Anonymous is difficult because no one knows how to deter Anonymous. Anonymous is an amorphous blob of hackers, hacktivists, script kiddies, basement dwellers, black hats, white hats, and everything in between. Indeed, Anonymous doesn't "have clear interests that can be used to deter aggression in cyberspace in the way a country's government would."
You can find the CNET article here.
You can find the WSJ article here.
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In fact, Wired reports that Anonymous has promised regularly scheduled Friday cyberattacks . . .
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