Reuters reports: “In a speech to an Internet security conference, Mueller said militant groups like al Qaeda had primarily used the Internet to recruit members and plan attacks, but had made clear they also see it as a target.

‘Terrorists have shown a clear interest in pursuing hacking skills and they will either train their own recruits or hire outsiders with an eye toward combining physical attacks with cyber attacks,’ Mueller said.

He noted a cyberattack could have the same impact as a ‘well-placed bomb.’

Mueller added that some foreign governments, which he did not identify, also posed a threat by seeking to use the Internet for espionage.

‘Apart from the terrorist threat, nation-states may use the Internet as a means of attack for political ends,’ he said.

‘Nation-state hackers or mercenaries for hire’ as well as rogue hackers or international criminal syndicates are targeting government networks, Mueller added.

‘They seek our technology, our intelligence, our intellectual property, even our military weapons and strategies.’…” (A cyber attack via computers or an electromagnetic pulse attack could paralyze a nation for months as failed computers or a blast 300 miles above the earth create a nuclear mix with gamma rays in space and a magnetic field catastrophe as the rays hit the earth – Luke 21:11, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32.)

BBC News reports: “The White House has declassified parts of a top secret plan outlining how government will protect the nation’s computer networks from cyber warfare.

The announcement by cybersecurity tsar Howard Schmidt was made at the world’s biggest security event.

The move is aimed at encouraging greater co-operation between academia, government and the private sector.

‘We have to fully recognise the importance cybersecurity has in our lives,’ Mr Schmidt said.

‘We must continue to seek out innovative new partnerships – not only within government, but also among industry, government and the American public,’ he told delegates at the event, hosted by the security company RSA in San Francisco.

It was his first major speech to industry peers since being appointed to the job in December 2009.

The Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI) was introduced in 2008 by then-President George W Bush…” (The damage resulting from either a cyber or electromagnetic pulse nuclear attack could cause a disaster throughout a nation as all electrical operations cease and the nation is at a total standstill. This is predicted in God’s Word especially for the 7-year tribulation period – Matthew 24:29. It’s during this attack that a blazing light from East to West occurs for all the world to witness and it’s Christ’s return in Matthew 24:27.)

Breitbart.com reports: “A cyber attack disabled US cell phone networks, slowed Internet traffic to a crawl and crippled America’s power grid — all in the interest of beefing up US security.

The simulated exercise was in fact a dress rehearsal meant to give US leaders practice in responding to a future devastating cyber-assault.

Dubbed ‘Cyber ShockWave’ and organized by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), the event was held at a Washington hotel room transformed for the day into the White House Situation Room, where the president and his advisers typically meet to address national emergencies.

In the simulation, former top US officials debated how to respond as the power grid in the eastern United States was virtually shut down by a stealth cyber attack and a pair of bombings, cutting electricity to tens of millions of homes.

Three large television screens behind the participants displayed multi-color maps of the United States with a series of alarming updates and a fictional television network, ‘GNN,’ broadcast news reports on the cascading crisis.

‘You’re going to see planes being grounded now. You’re going to see trains not moving,’ said Fran Townsend, former president George W. Bush’s one-time Homeland Security advisor, who was promoted to Homeland Security secretary for the simulation.

The ‘cabinet members’ debated how to respond to the situation and what advice to give the president, with suggestions ranging from calling out the National Guard, nationalizing the power companies and retaliating once the attackers’ identities were known.

‘If this is an attack on the United States the president, as commander-in-chief, has the authority to use the full powers at his disposal,’ said former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick, playing the role of the US attorney general.

‘We’re in good shape from a command and control standpoint,’ said ‘Secretary of Defense’ Charles Wald, a retired general and the former deputy commander of US European Command.

‘We can take action offensively if we know where to go,’ Wald said. ‘Problematically, we don’t know where that is.’

The Cyber ShockWave simulation was drawn up by Michael Hayden, a former CIA director, and members of the BPC’s National Security Preparedness Group…”

The Hill.com reports: “The president would have the power to safeguard essential federal and private Web resources under draft Senate cybersecurity legislation.

According to an aide familiar with the proposal, the bill includes a mandate for federal agencies to prepare emergency response plans in the event of a massive, nationwide cyberattack.

The president would then have the ability to initiate those network contingency plans to ensure key federal or private services did not go offline during a cyberattack of unprecedented scope, the aide said.

Ultimately, the legislation is chiefly the brainchild of Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, respectively. Both lawmakers have long clamored for a federal cybersecurity bill, charging that current measures — including the legislation passed by the House last year — are too piecemeal to protect the country’s Web infrastructure.

Their renewed focus arrives on the heels of two, high-profile cyberattacks last month: A strike on Google, believed to have originated in China, and a separate, more disjointed attack that affected thousands of businesses worldwide.

Rockefeller and Snowe’s forthcoming bill would establish a host of heretofore absent cybersecurity prevention and response measures, an aide close to the process said. The bill will ‘significantly [raise] the profile of cybersecurity within the federal government,’ while incentivizing private companies to do the same, according to the aide…

Privacy groups are nonetheless likely to take some umbrage at Rockefeller and Snowe’s latest effort, an early draft of which leaked late last year.

When early reports predicted the cybersecurity measure would allow the president to ‘declare a cybersecurity emergency,’ online privacy groups said they felt that would endow the White House with overly ambiguous and far-reaching powers to regulate the Internet…” (Let’s pray that America will be protected before the time of tribulation as our leaders work to create a cyber security bill.)