The Pentagon revealed a plan to create 13 offensive teams to use cyber weapons to defend the US from major cyber attacks from foreign countries. The Washington Post reported that on March 11, 2013 General Keith Alexander testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. For the past 8 years General Alexander has served as director of the National Security Agency and 3 years as head of the Cyber Command.  At the hearing the General testified  “that strategic-threat picture is worsening”: 

We’ve seen the attacks on Wall Street over the last six months grow significantly,… there were more than 160 disruptive attacks on banks in that period. 

Last summer, in August, we saw a destructive attack on Saudi Aramco, where the data on over 30,000 systems were destroyed. And if you look at industry, especially the anti-virus community and others, they believe it’s going to grow more in 2013. And there’s a lot that we need to do to prepare for this. 

Given all the recent press about claims that China is to blame for many of the cyber attacks, it will be interesting to learn more about what caused these problems, and how the cyber weapon offensive will work to protect the US government and businesses.
 

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