IP: US Said Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks US Said Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2561923783-076

05:07 PM ET 11/04/99

  US Said Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks US Said Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks

By EUN-KYUNG KIM= Associated Press Writer= WASHINGTON (AP) _

Reliance on the Internet has made the nation vulnerable to attacks by 
terrorists who strike through computers rather than with bombs or bullets, 
a White House security adviser said Thursday at a cyberthreat summit. ``We 
could wake one morning and find a city, or a sector of the country, or the 
whole country have an electric power problem, a transportation problem or a 
telecommunication problem because there was a surprise attack using 
information warfare,'' said Richard Clarke, the National Security Council 
adviser who heads counterterrorism efforts. Clarke said most Americans fail 
to realize how dependent they have become on computers _ not only at home 
or at the office, but also to run their electricity, telephone, 
transportation and other infrastructure systems. Clarke compared the 
reliance to former drug addicts enrolled in a recovery program.

_____________________________________________________________________
David Farber
The Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems
University of Pennsylvania
Home Page: http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~farber
Email: farber () cis upenn edu

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