“Foreign intelligence entities conduct a wide range of intelligence and clandestine activities that threaten and undermine our national security interests and objectives worldwide. Such actors target our armed forces; our military and national security‐related research, development, and acquisition activities; our national intelligence system; and our government’s decision making processes”, said DIA Director Lieutenant General Michael Flynn.
Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee
United States Senate 11 February 2014
Michael T. Flynn, Lieutenant General, U.S. Army
Director, Defense Intelligence Agency
“Globalization, rapid technological advancements, and an uncertain fiscal environment present new avenues of collection and threats from traditional nation‐state intelligence services and non state entities to target U.S. national security information, systems, and personnel. Increased financial pressures due to resource cuts create potential vulnerabilities that foreign intelligence entities seek to exploit to identify vulnerable employees and contractors with access to sensitive and classified national security information.
Foreign intelligence entities conduct a wide range of intelligence and clandestine activities that threaten and undermine our national security interests and objectives worldwide. Such actors target our armed forces; our military and national security‐related research, development, and acquisition activities; our national intelligence system; and our government’s decision making processes. In addition to threats by foreign intelligence entities, insider threats will also pose a persistent challenge. Trusted insiders with the intent to do harm can exploit their access to compromise vast amounts of sensitive and classified information as part of personal ideology or at the direction of a foreign government.
The unauthorized disclosure of this information to state adversaries, non‐state activists, or other entities will continue to pose a critical threat.
DIA is leading an Information Review Task Force to examine grave damage caused to Department of Defense equities and US national security as a result of the unauthorized NSA disclosures. An emerging threat that concerns the department involves the potential for foreign intelligence entities to compromise critical supply chains or corrupt key components bound for vital war‐fighting systems.
Additionally, a few transnational terrorist groups have developed effective intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities—we have seen this manifest in Iraq and Afghanistan, and terrorist groups are now using and sharing the knowledge and experience they gained in those conflicts.”
Source: Annual Threat Assessment Report http://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/2014_DIA_SFR_SASC_ATA_FINAL.pdf