Expert at London Internet Security Conference Warns of Cyber War

A leading internet security expert warned Tuesday that a cyber terrorist attack with "catastrophic consequences" looked increasingly likely in a world already in a state of near cyber war.
Speaking outside a global conference on internet security in London, Eugene Kaspersky, a Russian maths genius, told Sky News the threat was a real and present danger.
I don't want to speak about it. I don't even want to think about it," he said. "But we are close, very close, to cyber terrorism. Perhaps already the criminals have sold their skills to the terrorists -- and then ... oh, God."

Kaspersky, who founded an internet security empire with a global reach, said he believed that cyber terrorism was the biggest immediate threat confronting nations as diverse as China and the U.S.

"There is already cyber espionage, cyber crime and hacktivisim [when activists attack networks for political ends] -- soon we will be facing cyber terrorism," he said.

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, talking at the London Cyber Conference, added to the growing chorus of world leaders sounding the cyber alarm.

"We are here because international cyber security is a real and pressing concern," he said. "Let us be frank. Every day we see attempts on an industrial scale to steal government secrets -- information of interest to nation states, not just commercial organizations.
"Highly sophisticated techniques are being employed ... These are attacks on our national interest. They are unacceptable."
He warned that "we will respond to them as robustly as we do any other national security threat."
Both the U.S. and U.K. used the conference to set out principles they hope will form the basis of international cooperation in web governance, in which states would work together on issues such as security and copyright protection without imposing new restrictions on users, The Wall Street Journal reported.

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