U.S. Experienced ‘Electronic Pearl Harbor’ Last Year

The United States has experienced an  “electronic Pearl Harbor” in 2007, according to a report from CBS’s 60 Minutes.

 WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States has experienced an  “electronic Pearl Harbor” in 2007, according to a report from CBS’s 60 Minutes.

This attack happened by “some unknown foreign power,” said Jim Lewis, the director of the Technology and Public Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“[H]onestly, we don’t know who it is, broke into the Department of Defense, to the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, probably the Department of Energy, probably NASA. They broke into all of the high tech agencies, all of the military agencies, and downloaded terabytes of information,” he said.

As a point of reference, 12 terabytes is what it takes to digitally store the entire Library Of Congress.

The CBS show reported “less than a decade ago” on the potential of such an attack on the Pentagon or a major city, which would result in the crippling of critical infrastructure.

But such an attack happened last November on the CENTCOM network which is comprised of “the people who are fighting all of our wars,”. Lewis said.

The hackers acted “like they were part of military command,” he noted.

The Bush administration, however, failed to acknowledge that this historical breach of security happened on its watch, though the Pentagon admitted it happened.