America’s newest security threat involves criminals and enemies of the U.S. using its computer network as a weapon, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said in Hartford on Monday.
“This is one of the things that keeps me up at night,” said Lieberman, chairman of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security committee, told New England business leaders at the Hartford Club.
Using malicious codes to take over computers hooked up to the Internet, hackers, thieves, terrorists and hostile foreign governments could launch attacks on the power grid, financial infrastructure, water supplies and the U.S. Department of Defense, Lieberman told The New England Council on Monday at The Hartford Club.
Lieberman said some 285 million computers worldwide have been infected by malicious codes unknown to their users. Some $1 trillion is lost every year to cybercrime, he said.
To fix the problem, Congress and the Homeland Security committee is working on requirements for software developers, giving the president emergency powers over the Internet in the case of an attack, and taking greater control over the federal government’s cybersecurity advisors.
