Panetta Warns of Cyber Pearl Harbor: ‘The Capability to Paralyze This Country Is There Now’

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CNSnews:

Panetta answered, “All I can tell you is that technologically the capability to paralyze this country is there now.”

When Graham asked whether a “growing will” existed among enemies of the United States to engage in cyberattack, Panetta said, “I think that the more this technology develops, the more the will to potentially use it is going to take place.”

 

Graham, who also serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, then followed up and asked, “Would you say there’s a high probability?”

“I think there’s a high risk,” said Panetta.

Earlier in the hearing, Panetta fielded questions on a potential cyberattack against the United States from Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), who asked him to elaborate on what he meant by a “digital Pearl Harbor,” whether the Defense Department has enough resources to deal with such a problem, and whether a sense of urgency was necessary.

“I think there has to be a greater sense of urgency with regards to the cyber potential not only now, but in the future,” said Panetta. “I think this is a, obviously it’s a rapidly developing area. The reality is we are the target of literally hundreds of thousands of attacks every day. It’s not only aimed at government, it’s aimed at the private sector.”

“There are a lot of capabilities that are being developed in this area,” said Panetta, who served as CIA director in the past. “I’m very concerned that the potential in cyber to be able to cripple our power grid, to be able to cripple our government systems, to be able to cripple our financial system would virtually paralyze this country. And, as far as I’m concerned, that represents the potential for another Pearl Harbor as far as the kind of attack that we could be the target of using cyber.”

 

“For that reason, it’s very important that we do everything that we can, obviously, to defend against that potential,” said Panetta. “I feel very good about our capabilities in terms of defending our systems with the help of NSA [National Security Agency] and their great technological capabilities.”