The Americans Are up to Something Again

In the last few days, the clamor caused by Leon Panetta has not quieted down. The head of the Pentagon appeared on Oct. 11 at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum located in New York. According to Panetta, the U.S. is threatened by mass hacker attacks.

The consequences of such assaults, the head of the Pentagon believes, are comparable to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and could cause a “cyber-Pearl Harbor.” As a result, the authorities have already worked out a whole series of measures. Among the hypothetical enemies, officially listed are Russia, China, Iran, as well as illegal armed groups.

“To make a comparison: dark clouds on the horizon herald an oncoming storm. Yet it is difficult to say when it will thunder,” — read an article in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

According to the author of this publication, the Americans were always slightly afraid of Beijing – and not just because of its military ambitions. China, as noted in the article, can easily use computers as weapons. The preparation for this, according to the assumption of the Italian press, is already actively under way.

Thus, according to Corriere della Sera, there are concerns that in the near future the U.S. will be subject to attacks by hackers from the East, whose specialization seems to be the theft of information and money through the internet.

Moreover, the author of the article insists that the likelihood of such events occurring is extremely high. In his opinion, the Americans have clearly not yet adopted enough measures to prevent cyber threats: “The web is so vast that it presents thousands of opportunities to anyone who wants to use it for hostile or criminal purposes.”

Though Panetta tried to express himself extremely carefully in his speech, most experts concluded that he was discussing a preemptive strike.

“If we detect an imminent threat of attack that would cause significant physical destruction in the United States or kill American citizens, we need to have the option to take action against those who would attack us, to defend this nation when directed by the president,” — the New York Times quotes Panetta’s speech.

Panetta noted that in the case of such a turn of events, the government has already put measures in place to swiftly and effectively ward off such threats. Despite the fact that the strongman does not talk openly about the aggressive nature of the strike and instead merely refers to it, other high-ranking officials at the Pentagon admit to exactly such an approach in the struggle against potential danger.

The official reasons for such actions from the part of the Americans are the recent cyber attacks on U.S. financial institutions. Panetta recalled the incident that occurred with the government-owned oil company Saudi Aramco, whose network was broken into by the Shamoon computer virus.

“Shamoon included a routine [which automatically] replaced crucial systems files, [and] put additional garbage data that overwrote all the real data on the machine. More than 30,000 computers that it infected were rendered useless and had to be replaced. It virtually destroyed 30,000 computers. […] The Shamoon virus was probably the most destructive attack that the private sector has seen to date,” — the Russian website ‘Kompyuternoe obozrenie’ (‘Computer Overview’) quotes the head of the Pentagon.

According to Panetta, the U.S. should be concerned that aggressor states and extremist organizations will use cyberspace to do a lot of harm to the West. The director of the Pentagon claims that this will be done by way of polluting water with chemicals, causing serious railway accidents, or cutting off power supplies.

In general, after Panetta’s speech, a feeling began to emerge that something would soon happen in the U.S. However, it’s entirely probable that this “something” won’t happen there, but in some other specific country that is in some way disagreeable to the Americans. How this will be argued – we already know.