Dan Coats Quotes

The biggest thing that concerns me is when we start getting countries using cybercrime to shut down infrastructure, electricity, communications systems, the Internet, et cetera.

Today, we face another major potential attack on our country. This attack is not a hijacked plane or bomb, although that remains a threat; rather, it is a cyber attack.

Cyberespionage and cyberattack is exploding from our adversaries inside our country. We don't seem capable of stopping it.

It is interesting that cyberwarfare is developing into something conventional and attacking objects, infrastructure, and critical services.

Cyberattacks diminish rather than accentuate political violence by making it easier for states, groups, and individuals to engage in two kinds of aggression that do not arise to the level of war: sabotage and espionage. Weaponized computer code and computer-based sabotage operations make it possible to carry out highly targeted attacks on adversary’s technical systems without directly and physically harming human operators and managers.

The United States cannot wait for the cyber equivalent of the collapse of the World Trade Center.

One thing about cyberattacks is that what works on Monday may not work on Thursday.

Once cyber crosses into the realm of the physical, then it's a physical attack, but it starts with cyber. And the idea of a cyber attack being able to take control of machines - that becomes a scary process.

Although we must be prepared for a catastrophic large-scale strike, a cyber armageddon, the reality is that we have been living with a constant barrage of cyberattacks for some time. The trend, I believe, will continue.

From bank accounts to financial systems, power grids to air traffic controls - our most critical infrastructure remain attractive cyber targets, and if they are ever compromised, the effects could be devastating.

If nothing else, the cyber attacks that occurred during the 2016 presidential election have laid bare the very real vulnerabilities that exist across our government and the private sector. Imagine the harm that could be done if our enemies ever hack into the Department of Defense or Homeland Security.

My view is that the cyber threat is bigger than any one government agency - or even the government itself. But the FBI brings a rare combination of scope and scale, experience, and tools to the mix. We investigate criminal activity like intrusions and cyber attacks, but we also investigate national security threats like foreign influence.

Cyber attacks are not going away.

The FBI has built up substantial expertise to address cyber threats, both in the homeland and overseas. Here at home, the FBI serves as the executive agent for the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF), which joins together 19 intelligence, law enforcement, and military agencies to coordinate cyber threat investigations.

The alarm bells sound regularly: cybergeddon; the next Pearl Harbor; one of the greatest existential threats facing the United States. With increasing frequency, these are the grave terms officials invoke about the menace of cybercrime - and they're not understating the threat.

An element of virtually every national security threat and crime problem the FBI faces is cyber-based or facilitated. We face sophisticated cyber threats from state-sponsored hackers, hackers for hire, organized cyber syndicates, and terrorists.

We are vulnerable in the military and in our governments, but I think we're most vulnerable to cyber attacks commercially. This challenge is going to significantly increase. It's not going to go away.

Look at what is happening in China and in Russia. They have units that are specifically targeted cyber warfare. They are carrying it out. Our critical infrastructure is attacked thousands of times a day.

If we take as given that critical infrastructures are vulnerable to a cyber terrorist attack, then the question becomes whether there are actors with the capability and motivation to carry out such an operation.

Cybersecurity is a new issue for the international community at large. First of all, the technologies are new and the attacks are invisible. Traditionally, if you perceived a threat, it could be seen. It was physical. But not in cyberspace.

I do agree that when it comes to cyber warfare, we have more to lose than any other nation on earth.

The Internet definitely could be a weapon of mass destruction - it's not going to come in a bomb, it's going to come as a cyberattack. It's pretty amazing to see what a small group of people can do if they really know how to control the universe.

I think we could very easily suffer a seriously catastrophic cyber event.

I am convinced that there are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked and those that will be. And even they are converging into one category: companies that have been hacked and will be hacked again.

There are those who've been hacked by the Chinese and those who don't know they've been hacked by the Chinese.