Nearly half of corporate security officers expect terrorists to launch a major strike through computer networks in the next 12 months, a poll released today shows.
A total of 49% of 1 009 subscribers to CSO Magazine said they feared a major cyber attack in the coming year by a group like al Qaeda, blamed for the 11 September attacks by four hijacked airplanes that killed more than 3 000 people in the US.
The poll was carried out between 19 July and 1 August by Framingham, Massachusetts-based CSO, whose first edition will appear next month.
Respondents were mainly from the US and Canada, and some may have links to intelligence and law enforcement officials, said Lew McCreary, editor in chief of the magazine whose initials stand for Chief Security Officer.
"In other words, their anxieties may come with a bit more substance attached" than generalised fears of a new attack, he said in reply to a query from Reuters. "But I`d have to say it`s a prediction based mainly on the threat being plausible rather than known through firm intelligence."
Respondents to the CSO survey were almost evenly split on whether the US government and US businesses were better prepared to respond to cyber attacks today than on 11 September.
But 95% of respondents said technology vendors needed to boost security aspects of their products. Only 7% said a group like al Qaeda would never launch a major cyber attack.
Presidential blueprint
To help protect cyberspace, President George Bush will roll-out a blueprint next month calling on people from PC users to US rocket scientists to do their share, including installing anti-virus software, White House officials said yesterday.
The goal is to prevent such things as "denial-of-service" attacks in which hijacked computing power could be collected and used to attack electricity grids, telecommunications and other critical infrastructure.
"The average American doesn`t necessarily recognise that he or she has a responsibility to protect their bit of cyberspace by using anti-virus software, firewalls, etc," said Tiffany Olson, deputy chief of staff of the president`s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board.
The board was set up last October to coordinate the development of a national strategy to shore up the networks on which advanced industrial societies like the US depend. It is chaired by Richard Clarke, special adviser to the president for cyber security.
Clarke has been working on the president`s strategy with as many as 25 executive branch agencies, including the Secret Service, the FBI-led National Infrastructure Protection Centre and the Commerce Department.
The heads of many of those agencies or their deputies will present Bush`s new multilevel strategy to secure cyberspace on 18 September at Stanford University in California, Olson added in a telephone interview.
The strategy includes recommendations to PC users and small businesses; big enterprises; and federal, state and local governments, plus industrial groups, she said. It will also address national initiatives and "overarching" concerns, plus global aspects of cybersecurity, Olson said.
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