Snowden - US has Started the Era of Cyber Attacks

Thehill.com published news on 8th January, 2015 quoting Edward Snowden, former contractor of National Security Agency (NSA) and currently whistleblower, as saying "The increase in cyber attacks employed by governments across the globe started with the US.

Snowden spoke to Journalist James Bamford in June 2014 for an upcoming NOVA film on cyber warfare and during that interview, he (referring to Snowden) indicated that United States reportedly used Stuxnet virus against an Iranian nuclear plant which was intercepted by security experts way back in 2010.

Snowden said that it is significant to highlight the use of various trends in many ways when we launched the Stuxnet campaign against the Iranian nuclear program.

The Stuxnet virus attack was one of the most devastating cyber attacks ever launched and it destroyed around one-fifth of nuclear centrifuges in Iran. The US is deemed to have worked in full co-operation with Israel under Bush administration to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Snowden added: "It is correct to say that it was the most advanced cyber attack that anyone could ever see at that time and it was launched as a U.S. approved campaign which marked a fundamental departure from our conventional analysis of levels of risks we want to presume for retaliation."

Snowden described the technical sector as the "backbone" of the American economy and the efforts to undermine or damage the Internet would cause more harm to America than it would cause to other countries. Therefore, Snowden argues that the US should allocate more resources to defensive strategy in cyberspace than to offensive capabilities.

Rt.com published news on 9th January, 2015 quoting Snowden as saying "Defending ourselves from Internet-based and Internet-originated attacks is much more important than our ability to launch similar attacks in foreign countries because when it comes to Internet and our technical economy, we have more to lose than any other country on Earth."

Snowden finally concluded by saying that US's National Security Agency should give more priority to its defensive capabilities rather than trying to attack countries which are less powerful than US - either militarily or economically.

» SPAMfighter News - 1/17/2015