Report Warns "Cyber Cold War" Is The Biggest Threat To National Security

November 29, 2007 8:01 p.m. EST

London, England (AHN) - Espionage in the age of a Web-based "Cyber Cold War" poses the biggest threat to national security, warns Internet security company McAfee in its latest annual Virtual Criminology Report.

The report, based on interviews with Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency, NATO and the FBI, said that attacks "have progressed from initial curiosity probes to well-funded and well organized operations for political, military, economic and technical espionage."

"We know that U.K. computer networks have been probed by China. The means to carry out 'cyber-warfare' have been under development for years. Now is the first time that we are seeing states flex their muscles," said Dr. Ian Brown of Oxford University, one of the report's authors.

Computer programs traced back to China have been found trying to crack British government passwords and attempting to uncover weak spots in the nation's Information Technology infrastructure, he said.

A sense of what future cyber-wars could entail was given earlier this year when Estonia had a massive "denial-of-service" attack that crashed education, banking and government networks with requests for information, The Times said.

McAfee's report, released Thursday, says that while 120 other countries are into cyber espionage, China is the most active.