Situation Room: The Threat Operations Center at NSA, where the nation's top cybersleuths are based. Khue Bui for NewsweekFrom Newsweek:
The computer wizards at the national Security Agency's tightly guarded headquarters in Fort Meade, Md., think they know better than anyone justhow vulnerable America is to a massive cyberattack. It's their job to monitor rogue activity on networks around the world. In recent years, hackers in Russia and China—possibly operating with government backing—have rummaged through U.S. and other Western data banks for sensitive information. Russia, in particular,has demonstrated a willingnessto wage cyberwarfare. It has launched hack attacks against uppity former Soviet satellites, including a blitz on Georgia last summer that knocked out its electronic banking system for 10 days, according to a NATO report obtained by newsweek.
Tobolster U.S. defenses against a similar strike, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is weighing the creation of a new Pentagon Cyber Command. But the prospect has already sparked a turf war over NSA's role in the unit. One maingoal of the new command, said a former senior U.S. official familiar with the debate who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive subject, is to get more help from NSA's computer geniuses on protecting U.S. networks. But except in rare circumstances, the NSA is supposed to stay out of homeland surveillance, and efforts to expand its domestic portfolio are almost always radioactive in Washington—as amply demonstrated by the recent controversy over alleged snooping on California Rep. Jane Harman. Indeed, during a rare public speech last week, NSA chief Keith Alexander said his agency does "not want to run cybersecurity for the U.S. government."
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My Comment: This is a short article, but many parts of it raised my eyebrows. For example, I never knew that Russia was successful in crashing Georgia's banking system for 10 days during the Russian Georgian War. But what struck me even more was a few paragraphs later we had this eye-opener of a remark.
.... the U.S. government isn't that worried about all-out cyberwarfare from China or Russia, because it would not be in their economic interests.
Sigh .... this is both an unbelievable and incomprehensible remark .... in war time the last thing the Russians or Chinese will be thinking about is their "economic interests". What will be important to them will be their political and military interests .... not the dollars and cents that they may lose.