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List:       isn
Subject:    [ISN] Bennett leads cyber-defense
From:       William Knowles <wk () C4I ! ORG>
Date:       2000-03-29 7:18:36
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http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,155013410,00.html?

Utah senator fears U.S. will be attacked by computer hackers

By Lee Davidson
Deseret News Washington correspondent

WASHINGTON Sen. Bob Bennett was appointed Monday to head a new Senate
group designed to be a central clearing house for information on how
to combat cyber-attacks.

That comes after Bennett, R-Utah, said last week that he fears the
next world war will not be fought with tanks and missiles, but by
enemy hackers attacking the nation's computers to crash everything
from the nation's utilities to its banking.

Bennett also headed a similar committee that oversaw combating the
Year 2000 computer glitch. His new Critical Infrastructure Protection
Working Group emerges largely to address threats warned about by the
earlier Y2K committee.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said he formed the group
and named Bennett to head it because "recent hacker attacks on major
e-commerce and government Web sites demonstrate the importance of
information security."

Bennett said, "The interconnectivity and advanced capabilities of U.S.
computer systems makes the United States more vulnerable to
cyber-attacks than any other nation in the world. Such attacks could
bring the U.S. economy to its knees."

He added, "The CIP Working Group will serve as a central repository
for this information and coordinate efforts to increase national
awareness."

Also appointed to the group were senators who chair regular committees
that share some jurisdiction over the problem including Judiciary
Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

Others include senators who chair the Banking, Commerce, Foreign
Relations, Commerce, Energy, Intelligence, Appropriations,
Environmental, Governmental Affairs and Armed Services committees,
plus a few additional senators.

Just last week, Bennett told a symposium on cyber-security that
lessons learned from fighting Y2K problems showed him how vulnerable
America is to an attack via computer hacking.

"The most vulnerable country in the world to this kind of attack is
the United States of America because we have the most advanced
capabilities," he said.

Bennett added that because computer systems are now so interconnected,
"a cyber-attack one place can bring down services in all the other
places in the world."

He said the major threat would be if "a possible major state . . .
would develop the resources for a concentrated, continuing and
sophisticated attack over time" via computer hacking.

Bennett added, "In my opinion, the next war will be this target rather
than the traditional" weapons of war.


*-------------------------------------------------*
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
Intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
---------------------------------------------------
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