Lancecastor
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Departing national cybersecurity chief issues warning
Judith Miller
New York Times
Published Feb. 2, 2003 CLAR02
Richard A. Clarke, the blunt, sometimes abrasive White House adviser who raised the alarm about security threats ranging from biological to computer terrorism for more than a decade, quietly resigned Friday as President Bush's cybersecurity czar.
In an interview after his last day in office, Clarke warned that although the government has made considerable progress in defending its electronic infrastructure from computer attacks, the United States faces ever greater peril, given its growing dependence on the Internet.
"A sophisticated cyberattack may not result in massive deaths," he said. "But it could really hurt our economy and diminish our ability to respond to a crisis, especially if it is combined with a war, or a terrorist attack."
Clarke said the attack last weekend by a computer bug known as the Sapphire worm showed the vulnerability of America's increasingly Internet-based economy. Though it was a relatively simple bug, he said, Sapphire, which also has been called Slammer, ravaged systems throughout the United States and overseas in just a few hours, shutting down some of the Bank of America's automated teller machines and Continental Airlines' online ticketing system, and denying Internet access to millions of personal computer owners.
Before tackling the country's computer vulnerabilities, Clarke was in charge of the White House's counterterrorism office for Bush and Clinton. He sometimes antagonized officials in federal agencies and even some White House colleagues by demanding more aggressive action against Islamic extremists such as Osama bin Laden.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/3627912.html
Judith Miller
New York Times
Published Feb. 2, 2003 CLAR02
Richard A. Clarke, the blunt, sometimes abrasive White House adviser who raised the alarm about security threats ranging from biological to computer terrorism for more than a decade, quietly resigned Friday as President Bush's cybersecurity czar.
In an interview after his last day in office, Clarke warned that although the government has made considerable progress in defending its electronic infrastructure from computer attacks, the United States faces ever greater peril, given its growing dependence on the Internet.
"A sophisticated cyberattack may not result in massive deaths," he said. "But it could really hurt our economy and diminish our ability to respond to a crisis, especially if it is combined with a war, or a terrorist attack."
Clarke said the attack last weekend by a computer bug known as the Sapphire worm showed the vulnerability of America's increasingly Internet-based economy. Though it was a relatively simple bug, he said, Sapphire, which also has been called Slammer, ravaged systems throughout the United States and overseas in just a few hours, shutting down some of the Bank of America's automated teller machines and Continental Airlines' online ticketing system, and denying Internet access to millions of personal computer owners.
Before tackling the country's computer vulnerabilities, Clarke was in charge of the White House's counterterrorism office for Bush and Clinton. He sometimes antagonized officials in federal agencies and even some White House colleagues by demanding more aggressive action against Islamic extremists such as Osama bin Laden.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/3627912.html
