Intelligence Chief Spins Scary Tales of Cyberattacks

If he was trying to scare the hell out of his listeners about the current state of cybersecurity, consider the newest warning from the nation's top intelligence official a mission accomplished.

In stark testimony delivered today to Congress, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper described a fast-eroding economic and national security landscape that's being rapidly penetrated by foreign agents infiltrating the nation's computer networks. This was the first time Clapper has included cyberattacks in his yearly congressional report on security threats facing the nation—the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community—and they top the list.

"We judge that there is a remote chance of a major cyberattack against U.S. critical infrastructure systems during the next two years that would result in long-term, wide-scale disruption of services, such as a regional power outage," Clapper told the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

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