Oh, so you’re a hacker and you’re feeling emboldened by the hackers who hilariously hacked PBS over the weekend, you say? You say you’re feeling a little frisky now and you’re thinking of pulling a funny on the U.S. military, perhaps photoshopping a penis onto the forehead of Defense Secretary Bob Gates on the Defense Department’s website? Do you reside in a foreign country, by chance? Oh, well, you should really think this through then.
Reports the Wall Street Journal:
The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.
The Pentagon’s first formal cyber strategy, unclassified portions of which are expected to become public next month, represents an early attempt to grapple with a changing world in which a hacker could pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, subways or pipelines as a hostile country’s military.
In part, the Pentagon intends its plan as a warning to potential adversaries of the consequences of attacking the U.S. in this way. “If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks,” said a military official.
In other words, you might want to stick to hacking PBS, and leave the government hacking to death-wishy as$holes looking for trouble, like the Iranians.
(HT: Hypervocal. Pic via)
