Keith Alexander, former National Security Agency director, highlighted the growing threat of cyber attacks on power grids, financial systems and other critical infrastructure during a recent Aspen Security Forum event, Politico reported Thursday.Josh Gerstein writes that Alexander anticipates that Congress will pass the proposed legislation on cyber information sharing between government and industry.
“The use of cyber, both for criminal activity and for nation-state, has had a significant rise in the last seven, eight years … We’ve told [Congress] it’s a crisis,” Alexander told his audience.
Meanwhile, the report said that Matt Olsen, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, noted that cyber is more an emerging threat and capability for U.S. adversaries as terrorist threats remain the greater danger.
“Some are focused on us and attacking us. Some are focused on regional goals, but they may soon turn their attention to the U.S.,” he said.
Gerstein reports that Olsen pointed to militant activity in Syria and Libya as additional complications in U.S. efforts to counter the main threats of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
