CybersecurityNations could cripple U.S. with retaliatory cyberattack

Last week Richard Clarke, a top adviser to three presidents, soundeda dire warning that the United States should avoid going to war with other nations because its computer networks systems are so vulnerable to attack.

The former top cybersecurity advisor to President George W. Bush, said he would advise the president from attacking other countries like China, North Korea, Iran, or Russia because they could all retaliate by launching a crippling cyberattack, destroying financial institutions, power grids, and transportation systems.

According to Clarke, a good national security advisor would tell the president that while the United States could launch a conventional attack, several countries have the capability to strike with a cyberattack and “the entire U.S. economic system could be crashed in retaliation … because we can’t defend it today.”

In addition, Clarke said the U.S. military is so reliant on computer systems that in a future conflict troops could reach the battlefield and realize “nothing works.”

“I really don’t know to what extent the weapon systems that have been developed over the last ten years have been penetrated, to what extent the chips are compromised, to what extent the code is compromised,” he said. “I can’t assure you that as you go to war with a cybersecurity-conscious, cybersecurity-capable enemy that any of our stuff is going to work.”

In recent years, Clarke has aggressively pushed the government in becoming more proactive in securing critical infrastructure and government networks from cyberattacks.