Contained within the pages of a 2013 unclassified Senate report ( 113-007 ) were details of a series of cyber attacks launched against the United States in 20011, possibly 2012.
Here are excepts from that report:
“On January 31, 2012, in the second session of the 112th Congress, the Committee held its annual open hearing on the current and projected threats to the United States.
DNI Clapper presented a consolidated statement on behalf of the IC and was joined by David Petraeus, Director of the CIA; Robert S. Mueller III, Director of the FBI; Lieutenant General Ronald L. Burgess, Jr., Director of the DIA; Philip Goldberg, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research; Matthew Olsen, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center; and Caryn Wagner, Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. Director Clapper’s unclassified statement for the record is available in the Hearings section of the Committee’s website and the record of the hearing has been printed as S. Hrg. 112-481.
A video recording of the full hearing can also be found on the Committee’s website.
Director Clapper reprised his testimony from 2011, specifically noting the difficulty in ranking, in terms of long-term importance–the numerous potential threats to U.S. national security, but adding a fourth category, cybersecurity, to the major categories of threats that face the United States.
Cyber threats, he said, “pose a critical national and economic security concern due to the continued advances in–and growing dependency on–the information technology (IT) that underpins nearly all aspects of modern society. Data collection, processing, storage, and transmission capabilities are increasing exponentially; meanwhile, mobile, wireless, and cloud computing bring the full power of the globally-connected Internet to myriad personal devices and critical infrastructure. Owing to market incentives, innovation in functionality is outpacing innovation in security, and neither the public nor private sector has been successful at fully implementing existing best practices.’
Specifically highlighting China and Russia as being of particular concern, Director Clapper suggested “entities within these countries are responsible for extensive illicit intrusions into U.S. computer networks and theft of U.S. intellectual property” (source: http://thomas.loc.gov).