United States Has Cyber Nightmares

There is a job that no one of sound mind would want: that of James R. Clapper, Director of U.S. National Intelligence. He is responsible for coordinating all of the American security and intelligence agencies, collecting all of their analyses regarding risks and threats and informing the president and Congress of which ones pose the greatest risks to the nation in 2014.

Want to know how the world is seen from the desk of Mr. Clapper? Well, read the report attached, which summarizes and condenses in 31 pages all that the U.S. reveals. It is called “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community,” and was presented on Jan. 29 in the Senate Intelligence Committee. *

The report covers everything from thematic to geographic questions. If the order that they are presented in seems relevant, and it is, surely it will surprise you to know that to the U.S. intelligence community, cyber security is a bigger problem than the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

It is cyber security that the report opens with, and where it expects challenges to increase throughout 2014. Why? Because of what the report names the “convergence of critical tendencies.” What does that mean? That the risks of cyber security affect governments, businesses and citizens.

Economic, political and social life is migrating to the Internet at a dramatic rate, which is increasing its vulnerabilities, many of them intertwined, to attacks from governments, economic operators or terrorists. The massive attack South Korea suffered in March of 2013, which took over three television channels and five of the six most important banks and disconnected 30,000 computers, has marked a before and after for two reasons: first, and most obvious, because of its importance; second, because of the impunity with which it was achieved and the difficulty in establishing the geographic origin and its perpetrators.

On the other hand, regarding Iran, the report proves confident that, although the Iranian regime has not renounced its program and wants to be near the possibility of having nuclear weapons, the agreements reached in 2013 will permit it to draw out its program until the point that an eventual reactivation can be realized on time.

One final curiosity: The report closes with a warning about the boom of populist policies in Europe. “Public fears over immigration and Islam, alienation from EU policies and perceptions that centrist parties are unable to deal with high unemployment and income inequalities will increase the resonance of the rhetoric of far-right and far-left radical parties.” In Washington, they take it for granted….

* Read report here: http://blogs.elpais.com/files/clapper.pdf