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(60,364 posts) Tue Mar 5, 2013, 10:05 AM Mar 2013

Task force recommends U.S. keep nuclear option as response for massive computer attack

http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/3596265-74/computer-attack-report

Task force recommends U.S. keep nuclear option as response for massive computer attack
By Andrew Conte
Published: Tuesday, March 5, 2013, 12:01 a.m.
Updated 9 hours ago

The United States should be prepared to use every military option, including nuclear retaliation, in response to a huge computer attack, an independent Department of Defense task force said.

But the nation must determine whether its nuclear arsenal can withstand computer hackers, the Defense Science Board warns in a newly declassified report obtained by the Tribune-Review. In a full-scale cyber war, the board's experts say, the United States' weapons could be disabled or turned against its troops.

“It would have to be extreme,” Paul Kaminski, chair of the Science Board and a member of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, said about the kind of attack that might trigger a nuclear response. “It would have to be the kind of attack that we would judge would be threatening our survival.”

The United States must assume that computer attacks will be part of conflicts, said the report from the task force made up of civilian experts with government advisers. Yet, the report said the country cannot be confident that its military's computer systems would still work under attack from a sophisticated adversary nation with a full range of military and intelligence options.