U.S. Government Is Victim Of Cyber Attack

The United States in general, and it's government in particular, are heavily dependent on computers. Even our military and most of our weapons are computerized. If you want to attack or damage the United States, the smartest and safest way to do it would be with a cyber attack. And that's just what happened on July 4th.

The BBC is reporting that several government agencies and other entities in the United States were the victim of a computer attack starting on July 4th. The known victims of this attack are the White House, the Defense Department, New York Stock Exchange, the National Security Agency, Nasdaq Stock market and the Washington Post.

The government is not talking, but Ben Rushlo of Keynote Systems describes the attack as a "massive outage". Some systems were just slowed, while others were knocked out for several hours.

Who did it? Perhaps a clue can be gleaned from the only other country that was targeted in this cyber attack -- South Korea. In South Korea, the presidential Blue House, the Defense Ministry and the National Assembly were all victimized by the attack. The South Korean National Intelligence Service believes North Korea is responsible for the attacks on both countries.

For several years now, North Korea has been acting like they are bullet-proof. In defiance of world opinion, they have developed nuclear weapons. They are also testing missle delivery systems in spite of being warned not to do it. A cyber attack is just as serious as these other violations of international peace. In fact, it could be considered an act of war.

If it is verified that North Korea is the origin of the cyber attacks, perhaps it is time to take some action against them -- something more serious than begging them to be good. They have shown they are a dangerous outlaw nation.