NSA veteran chief fears crippling cyber-attack on Western energy infrastructure

The West is losing the worldwide fight against jihadist terrorism and faces mounting risks of a systemic cyber-assault by extremely capable enemies, the former chief of the National Security Agency has warned.

“The greatest risk is a catastrophic attack on the energy infrastructure. We are not prepared for that,” said General Keith Alexander, who has led the US battle against cyber-threats for much of the last decade.

Gen Alexander said the “doomsday” scenario for the West is a hi-tech blitz on refineries, power stations, and the electric grid, perhaps accompanied by a paralysing blow to the payments nexus of the major banks.

“We need something like an integrated air-defence system for the whole energy sector,” he said, speaking at a private dinner held by IHS CERAWeek in Texas.

More insidiously, there is now a systematic effort by state-backed hacking teams to steal technology from Western companies. “This is the biggest wealth transfer in history,” he said.

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Gen Alexander, who served as head of US Cyber Command as well as director of the electronic eavesdropping agency, listed five countries able to conduct cyber-warfare at the highest level: the US, UK, Israel, Russia, and surprisingly Iran.

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China clearly has first-rate hackers, allegedly concentrated at a 2,000-strong cell of the People’s Liberation Army in Shanghai. The current NSA chief Michael Rogers testified late last year that China is capable of cyber-attacks that could cause “catastrophic failures” of the water system or the electricity grid.

Hank Paulson, the former US Treasury Secretary and author of a new book entitled “Dealing With China”, told the CERAWeek conference that Chinese hackers have been stealing intellectual property on a large scale.

“That’s the most quarrelsome issue because it plays to the common perception that China doesn’t play fair. US companies have got to do a better job of hardening their systems,” he said.

Full article: NSA veteran chief fears crippling cyber-attack on Western energy infrastructure (The Telegraph)