Report: Countries prepping for cyber war

By Elinor Mills
InSecurity Complex
CNet News
November 16, 2009

Major countries and nation-states are engaged in a "Cyber Cold War,"
amassing "cyber weapons," conducting espionage, and testing networks in preparation for using the Internet to conduct war, according to a new report to be released on Tuesday by McAfee.

In particular, countries gearing up for cyber offensives are the U.S., Israel, Russia, China, and France, the says the report, compiled by former White House Homeland Security adviser Paul Kurtz and based on interviews with more than 20 experts in international relations, national security and Internet security.

"We don't believe we've seen cases of cyber warfare," said Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research at McAfee. "Nations have been reluctant to use those capabilities because of the likelihood that [a big cyber attack] could do harm to their own country. The world is so interconnected these days."

Threats of cyber warfare have been hyped for decades. There have been unauthorized penetrations into government systems since the early ARPANET days and it has long been known that the U.S. critical infrastructure is vulnerable.