Web warfare ‘No. 1 threat’

Cyber warfare is the United States’ “No. 1 threat,” according to leading national security experts who are blasting the government for failing to protect the records of millions of federal employees at the hands of suspected Chinese hackers — and charging that the U.S. needs to respond more vigorously.

“It’s the unseen threat,” said Cedric Leighton, a retired Air Force colonel who held top posts at the National Security Agency and the Pentagon. “We have a false sense of security. We don’t see it. We don’t understand it. And we don’t know when they’re stealing from us. It’s the No. 1 threat facing the country.”

U.S. and Chinese diplomats will meet tomorrow for the annual U.S.-China strategic and economic dialogue. But the Obama administration says the two governments won’t be bickering over differences, but instead will accentuate the positive, stressing areas of cooperation, such as climate change.

The insistence on a positive focus in tomorrow’s meetings comes despite growing U.S. suspicions that Beijing is behind the massive hack of a server at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and the theft of security and personnel records of 14 million employees and contractors — including detailed background information on military and intelligence personnel. China has denied it’s behind the attacks and said it has also been victimized 
by hackers.

Bradley Schreiber of Homeland Security Solutions said regardless of how many sensitive records were compromised, all cyber hacks on the government should be taken seriously.

“Any type of breach of this sort, whether it’s one or a million, it doesn’t matter,” Schreiber said. “We have to do everything we can to protect those who serve our country and help defend it. … They’re not just stealing financial data, your identity, they’re stealing blueprints for weapons.”

Leighton, slamming government “incompetence,” said heads should roll. He explained that the government’s intelligence community is adept at combating cyberterrorism, but other non-intelligence agencies have been slow to adapt, allowing hackers access to sensitive information. The OPM network was apparently not encrypted, which should have made hacking difficult or impossible, Leighton said.

“The government failed to encrypt the most sensitive data. The incompetence of the government in this area is completely unconscionable,” Leighton said. Of the hackers, he said, “Essentially, they’re mapping the entire government structure. Anybody who touches somebody who has been associated with the government, somebody who required a clearance, they have the information on those people, too. It allows them to go into networks and act as if they’re that person.”

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