<http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41700,00.html>
Feds Say Fidel Is Hacker Threat
by Declan McCullagh (declan at wired.com)
2:00 a.m. Feb. 9, 2001 PST
WASHINGTON -- These must be jittery times for anyone in the military
who uses the Internet.
Not only do they have to guard against Love Bug worms and security
holes in Microsoft Outlook -- now they've got to worry about Fidel
Castro hacking into their computers.
Admiral Tom Wilson, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, says the
74-year-old communist dictator may be preparing a cyberattack against
the United States.
Wilson told the Senate Intelligence Committee during a public hearing
Wednesday that Castro's armed forces could initiate an "information
warfare or computer network attack" that could "disrupt our military."
The panel later went into closed session to discuss classified
material.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked in response: "And you would say that
there is a real threat that they might go that route?"
Replied Wilson: "There's certainly the potential for them to employ
those kind of tactics against our modern and superior military."
He said that Cuba's conventional military might was lacking, but its
intelligence operations were substantial.
The partly classified hearing is an annual event -- and an important
one: It represents this year's World Threat Assessment discussion.
That's a chance for the intelligence committee to set its agenda for
this session of Congress and hear from senior intelligence officials
about the latest national security threats.
In addition to the aging president of Cuba, witnesses and senators
both cited encryption as another technology-related threat during a
far-ranging discussion that also encompassed nuclear, biological and
chemical weapons.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the committee's hawkish chairman, said
that the classified hearing later in the day would "explore the
challenges posed by, among others, the proliferation of encryption
technology, the increasing sophistication of denial and deception
techniques, the need to modernize and to recapitalize the National
Security Agency, and other shortfalls in intelligence funding."
[...]