I just read this and I decided to share with you:
In the hour-long session with the magazine’s editors, he said:
– “We are facing the threat of a new arena in warfare that could be every bit as destructive as 9/11 — the American people need to know that. We can’t hide this from the American people any more than we should have hidden the terrorism-attack threat from the American people.”
– “The three potential adversaries out there that are developing the greatest capabilities are Russia, China, Iran.”
– “Out of a scale of 10, we’re probably 8 [in cyber-war skills. But potential foes] are moving up on the scale – probably the others are about a 3, somewhere in that vicinity, but they’re beginning to move up.”
He also said the U.S. military is stepping up its offensive cyber war capability:
– “I think we have to develop the ability to conduct counter-operations against a country we know, or anticipate, that they’re going to launch that kind of attack. So we have to have both defensive and offensive capabilities.”
Continue Reading full story here: http://nation.time.com/2012/10/12/panetta-sounds-alarm-on-cyber-war-threat/#ixzz29IDBhoJv