Could there be a Cyber War?

A growing threat to this nation is digital warfare, and the concern is if our nation is ready to handle it. In a recent article put out by Time Magazine, Defense Secretary Panetta issued a nationwide warning that something could be brewing in the near future. He is sounding the alarm to put everyone on notice.

“The whole point of this is that we simply don’t just sit back and wait for a goddamn crisis to happen,” Panetta told Time. “In this country we tend to do that, and that’s a concern.”

Could defense Secretary Panetta be over reacting, well maybe that is your own opinion? To me it seems like he is sending out a legitimate warning about this issue. With the world the way it is today some specialist are referring to it as a possible “Cyber Pearl Harbor”. Which I believe is credible. Our defenses on our shorelines and borders are extremely strong but are our defenses over the internet as strong. Could we possibly defend ourselves against a nationwide cyber-attack?

I don’t think this nation is ready to defend against such attack. We have so much access to the internet it is so hard for the government to monitor it all at the same time. The threat could be something as simple as a mass email that strikes at one time and no one could possibly predict when that will hit the main stream web. And what about hackers…. Now that’s a whole other topic on its own. But the truth is we, as a nation, are not ready for such attacks.

Look at it, the government is currently hiring hackers to help them out, and the secret is most of these hackers have hacked into the governments system before. The government is using them with the philosophy: If you can’t stop them hire them to help defend against others.

Is our nation truly prepared for a cyber-attack?  I can only hope so but with more and more four-year-olds running around with iPhone and tablets, we can only wonder because we put the internet right in the palm of their hands. And I do not believe they will be able to tell if a pop-up isn’t a hacker trying to worm their way into their system.

 This is a growing concern for the United States and there could possibly be an attack brewing at any moment, the internet is just so unpredictable.

By: Cristina Coca