On Oct. 12, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued a stern warning to keepers of America’s infrastructure: you are facing a new arena of warfare that could be every bit as destructive as 9/11.

That battlefield, however, is not your typical war zone. It will come, Panetta said, in the form of a CyberWar.

According to West Virginia University’s Roy Nutter, it is not a question of if the war will happen but a question of how soon.

“Is CyberWar feasible? Yes, it is 100 percent a reality,” said Nutter, professor of computer science and electrical engineering and an expert in preventing cyber attacks. “Everything from our country’s financial system to its power grid and power generation system is controlled by computers. If the Internet goes away even for a short period of time all of those systems go down.”

To prove his point, Nutter referenced recent power outages from winter storms and this past summer’s derecho storm, which left hundreds of thousands on the east coast without power for more than a week.

“Imagine that, only longer and nationwide,” Nutter said. “Everything from your smart phone, to your ATM machine to your gas station and grocery story will be affected. If you’re traveling out of town, how will you get home? Once you get home, what will you do there?”

Nutter said that most people think of computer viruses and Trojans as things done by “teenagers in basements” trying to crash computer systems for the fun of it. But things have changed significantly over the past few years.

“These ‘teenagers’ are now young thieves working in cubicles for multinational organized crime syndicates,” Nutter said. “These syndicates are cyber defense’s everyday concern. At WVU, we teach classes in cyber defense and our students have been heavily recruited by government and industry in an effort to protect against such an attack. But many nation states have simply stood by passively and watched this happen.

“These attacks can cripple our economy and turn the United States into a third world country in a matter of minutes,” Nutter added. “Is the United States doing something about it? Yes, but bureaucracy moves very slowly.”

But what can the average person do to prevent an attack? Nutter’s advice is simple. “Use complex password and virus checkers,” he said. “Keep your software up to date by using automatic updates. These simple steps will help ensure you are not part of the problem.”

—WVU—

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CONTACT: Mary C. Dillon
304-293-4086; mary.dillon@mail.wvu.edu