On March 7, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Robert S. Mueller III, had warned about a possible terrorist hacking in the “FBI Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2013” according to ZDNet. The U.S. Congress was made aware by the FBI director himself that he believes since as of yet a terrorist attack on the U.S. government has not taken place yet, this is why they should start expecting it to come any time now.
The following is an excerpt from Mueller’s testimony to the House appropriations subcommittee:
“To date, terrorists have not used the Internet to launch a full-scale cyber attack, but we cannot underestimate their intent. Terrorists have shown interest in pursuing hacking skills. And they may seek to train their own recruits or hire outsiders, with an eye toward pursuing cyber attacks. These adaptations of the terrorist threat make the FBI’s counterterrorism mission that much more difficult and challenging.”
The U.S. Congress is still to decide on an action about a possible terrorist hacking attack on the government. Obviously not to be outsmarted by the hactivist group, they have kept their measures secret as yet. However, FBI has been a victim of one of hacktivist group, Anonymous, attack on their telephone conversation between the FBI authorities in New York and law enforcement in London on February 28, 2012.
This is not just plain scary, but of course for the most organized law enforcement agencies, it is high-risk too. Not only did they break into their conversation through hacking like that, but they let the entire world in on it too by posting the 16-minute recording of the conference on YouTube online. The authorities felt embarrassed and helpless, those who are meant to be ahead in the game were shown to be outsmarted by Anonymous. The FBI’s demand for an increase in budget will likely by met in front of such a situation. For FBI, Anonymous is proving to be the hacking enemy number one.
Mueller has point them out in his testimony saying:
“Over the past year, the FBI and our partners have also pursued members of Anonymous, who are alleged to have coordinated and executed distributed denial of service (DDos) attacks against various Internet companies. To date, 16 individuals have been arrested and charged in more than 10 states as part of this ongoing investigation. According to the indictment, the Anonymous group referred to the DDoS attacks as Operation Avenge Assange and allegedly conducted the attacks in support of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The defendants are charged with various counts of conspiracy and intentional damage to a protected computer.”
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