Former spy chief says U.S. has had its cyber ’9/11 warning’

Steven Musil
CNet.com
December 5, 2012

The United States faces “the cyber equivalent of the World Trade Center attack” unless urgent action is taken, a former U.S. intelligence chief warns.

John “Mike” McConnell, who served as director of the National Security Agency under President Clinton and then as director of national intelligence under George W. Bush and President Obama, told the Financial Times (subscription required) that such an attack would cripple the nation’s banking system, power grid, and other essential infrastructure.

“We have had our 9/11 warning. Are we going to wait for the cyber equivalent of the collapse of the World Trade Centers?” McConnell said, referring to attacks on the Web sites of major banks and a cyberattack earlier this year that rendered two-thirds of the computers at Saudi Arabian oil company useless.

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This article was posted: Wednesday, December 5, 2012 at 12:55 pm

Tags: 9/11, technology, terrorism

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