CIA Director Deutch's comments in the Defense Daily article below about hacker surveillance and the national security threat of anonymity: "Tools are readily available on the Internet, and hackers [computer experts] are a source for any foreign nation or terrorist organization," he said. The personal anonymity provided by cyberspace also aids foreign agents, Deutch said, adding that "hackers, with or without their full knowledge, may be supplying advice and expertise to rogue states such as Iran and Libya." The CIA and other agencies are working to collect information about hackers and their activities from both informants and from other advanced means, including signals intelligence, Deutch said. The CIA is working closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Justice to collect and analyze information about hackers and their relationships with organized crime and foreign agents, he said. ------ Defense Daily, 26 June 1996 Deutch Orders Information Warfare Estimate The nation's top intelligence official said Tuesday that he has ordered a major review of foreign threats to the U.S. information, banking, and telecommunications networks. "The treat of information warfare and the damage it could cause to the U.S. is so significant that it warrants an National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)," John Deutch, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), told the Senate Government Affairs committee yesterday. He added that disruption of the information infrastructure could give terrorists or foreign governments the ability to weaken U.S. national security. "Information attacks could not only disrupt our daily lives, but also seriously jeopardize our national or economic security," he added. Deutch said he ordered the NIE to focus attention on how vulnerable the nation's computer-based telecommunications and information networks are to foreign governments and terrorist groups, which are both, despite their relative differences in personnel and funding, potential threats to U.S. information networks. Information warfare is neither manpower intensive nor an expensive form of terrorism, Deutch said, adding that even the smallest radical group can exploit the unregulated and undefended expanse of cyberspace. For example, the Islamic militant group Hezboullah has been using the Internet and other modern means of communications for their daily operations, Deutch said. Such technology could also be used to launch a terrorist act on the U.S., he added. This NIE will determine the damage terrorists or foreign governments could inflict were they to combine information warfare techniques with conventional military tactics to attack the U.S. An NIE, which details potential security threats to the U.S., is usually crafted by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), a senior panel of career intelligence officers and academics. This NIE, however, will also include comments from the U.S. law enforcement community, the Defense Information Security Agency, the armed services, and representatives from the major telecommunications providers, Deutch said. The threat estimate is expected to be complete by December 1, 1996, he added. Preliminary evaluations conducted by the U.S. intelligence community suggest that such a coordinated information attack could seriously disrupt electric power grids, air traffic control centers, banks and the stock market, or even the operational effectiveness of deployed U.S. military forces. Deutch is concerned about the ease with which enemy agents can obtain the hardware and software required to attack the information infrastructure. "Tools are readily available on the Internet, and hackers [computer experts] are a source for any foreign nation or terrorist organization," he said. The personal anonymity provided by cyberspace also aids foreign agents, Deutch said, adding that "hackers, with or without their full knowledge, may be supplying advice and expertise to rogue states such as Iran and Libya." In addition to the high technology, computer-based threat to the U.S. information infrastructure, foreign agents could use conventional explosives to destroy key information facilities and data processing centers. Previous studies conducted by the U.S. intelligence community suggests that numerous foreign nations are creating "cyber-warfare" techniques for application on the modern battlefield, Deutch said. Those programs are geared towards crippling an enemy's command and control centers or disabling air defense networks, he added. Based upon the progress made by these military programs, disrupting U.S. civilian and commercial information networks would be easy, Deutch said. The U.S. intelligence community has begun several activities in response to the emerging cyber-threat, he said. The CIA and other agencies are working to collect information about hackers and their activities from both informants and from other advanced means, including signals intelligence, Deutch said. The CIA is working closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Justice to collect and analyze information about hackers and their relationships with organized crime and foreign agents, he said. Both the intelligence and law enforcement communities are trying to work with private industry and academia in this cyber-warfare campaign, he said. The Pentagon and the CIA may reorganize existing personnel and efforts to create a new information warfare center at the National Security Agency, he added. -----