Pentagon is about to roll out an expanded effort to safeguard its contractors from hackers and is building a virtual firing range in cyberspace to test new technologies, according to officials familiar with the plans, as a recent wave of cyber attacks boosts concerns about U.S. vulnerability to digital warfare.
The twin efforts show how President Barack Obama's administration is racing on multiple fronts to plug the holes in U.S. cyber defenses.
Notwithstanding the military's efforts, however, the overall gap appears to be widening, as adversaries and criminals move faster than government and corporations, and technologies such as mobile applications for smart phones proliferate more rapidly than policymakers can respond, officials and analysts said.
* Spin-offs of the malicious code dubbed "agent.btz" used to attack the military's U.S. Central Command in 2008 are still roiling U.S. networks today. People inside and outside the U.S. government strongly suspect Russia was behind the attack, which was the most significant known breach of military networks.
U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III says the cyber threat is moving up "a ladder of escalation": from network intrusions to service disruptions to possible attacks on infrastructure that could cause physical damage and "even loss of life."
Lynn said Thursday that a terrorist group could disrupt or destroy computer systems — and noted that al-Qaida has expressed a desire to carry out a cyberattack.
He spoke at a conference hosted by the Center for Strategic Decision Research and attended by military officials and corporate executives from 40 nations.
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