Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese government and freelance
hackers are the primary culprits behind as many as several
hundred daily attacks against U.S. government, electric-utility
and financial computer networks, a senior congressman said.
“Sophisticated hackers could really wreak havoc on our
financial systems if they were successful,” House Homeland
Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson said in an interview.
The threat is “primarily from China.”
While cyber plots to disrupt U.S. computer networks have
been thwarted, significant vulnerabilities exist, said Thompson,
a Mississippi Democrat.
Many of these problems will be detailed in a 60-day review
the Obama administration on Feb. 9 said it would conduct on
government cyber-security efforts, Thompson said. President
Barack Obama also has said he would appoint a computer-security
chief who will report directly to him, a move Thompson supports.
Currency trading is among the financial networks targeted by
hackers, Thompson said. An attack would be particularly damaging
in light of the financial system’s troubled state, he said.
He said electric utilities’ networks also have several
points of weakness.
“We were provided alarming data on the vulnerability of our
electrical grid in this country,” he said.
China’s Denial
Wang Baodong, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in the
U.S., denied that the Chinese government was attacking U.S.
computer systems.
“Allegations that the Chinese government is behind cyber
attacks against the U.S. computer networks are totally
unwarranted and misleading for the America public,” Wang said in
an e-mailed statement.
Wang said the Chinese government is “cracking down” on
computer hacking and other cyber crimes.
Thompson, during the interview, touched on topics ranging
from immigration legislation to terrorism. He called a “cheap
shot” former Vice President Dick Cheney’s assertion in an
interview Feb. 3 that Obama’s policies make a terrorist attack
more likely.
“There’s nothing that I’ve been briefed on in a classified
setting that gives me any concern that what the vice president
said is true,” he said. “It’s easy to say something is going to
happen, so if it happens two years from now, you say, ‘I told you
so.’”
Monitoring Threat
Thompson also said that U.S. authorities are monitoring
about 20 Somali-American youths who disappeared from Minneapolis
last year. The youths are suspected of traveling to Somalia and
linking up with al-Shabab, a militant Islamic organization that
the State Department considers a terrorist organization,
according to Newsweek.
“We know who the suspects are, we pretty much have them
under observation, and at this point nothing has risen to the
level of bringing these people in,” Thompson said.
Al-Shahab is linked to al-Qaeda, and the FBI and the
Department of Homeland Security investigated the threat of an
attack by the group around the time of Obama’s inauguration last
month.
Immigration Issues
On immigration, Thompson said it’s possible that Congress in
the next two years will pass legislation overhauling U.S.
immigration law, tightening border security and establishing a
temporary worker program. The financial crisis has made it
difficult for lawmakers to focus on the measure, and it isn’t the
“hot button” that it was before last year’s elections, he said.
In the meantime, Thompson said, he is urging the
administration to develop a comprehensive plan for securing U.S.
borders against illegal aliens, including a decision on whether
to continue building a 670-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico
border.
Thompson, who voted against building the fence, favors using
a combination of Border Patrol agents, fencing, cameras, sensors
and radar.
He has been critical of progress on the system, known as
Secure Border Initiative Net, which has suffered delays because
of technical glitches
