Director of National Intelligence Warns of "cyber-Pearl Harbor"

Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, warned the Senate Intelligence Committee that "Malicious cyberactivity is occurring on an unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication." His emphasis on the threat points up the growing concerns among American intelligence officials about the potentially devastating results of a coordinated attack on the nation's technology apparatus, sometimes called a "cyber-Pearl Harbor." He said that the surge in cyberattacks, including the penetration of Google's servers from inside China, was a "wake-up call" for those who dismissed the threat of computer warfare. "Sensitive information is stolen daily from both government and private-sector networks, undermining confidence in our information systems, and in the very information these systems were intended to convey," Blair said.