Frank Abagnale Quotes

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.

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.

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.

If there's a cyberattack from China or Russia or Romania or Mexico, it may well run through a server in another country. And it may take months before you know where it really came from.

A major attack on our cyber systems could shut down our critical infrastructure - financial systems, communications systems, electric grids, power plants, water treatment centers, transportation systems and refineries - that allows us to run our economy and protect the safety of Americans.

As the United States attorney in Manhattan, I have come to worry about few things as much as the gathering cyber threat.

The single biggest existential threat that's out there, I think, is cyber.

There are two kinds of people in America today: those who have experienced a foreign cyber attack and know it, and those who have experienced a foreign cyber attack and don't know it.

As our use of technologies grows exponentially, so do our country's vulnerabilities. Our national security depends on the stability and reliability of our communications infrastructure. The cyber threat to IT and national security systems has never been greater.

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.

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.

Organized crime and rogue nation states and terrorists are very much focused on the Internet of things. The challenge that goes with connectivity is always security. The bad guys go wherever the return is, and now it's more lucrative for bad guys to focus on cybercrime than traditional crime.

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

All of our intelligence agencies, our Department of Defense, are all working to meet this threat. But it's a fast moving world; it's a place where offense is easier than defense, and keeping up with the next innovation in cyber-warfare is an enormous challenge.

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.

What you really want is for a cyberattack to be very costly and risky so it is used only rarely and only against really high-value targets.

I am a physical retailer by trade - if your shop is burgled you don't immediately think, 'Is it North Korea? Is it the Mafia?' But with cyber you don't know initially whether you're dealing with a state actor, as they call them, a small-time criminal, an insider.

The scope of our cybersecurity problem is enormous. Our government, our businesses, our trade secrets and our citizens' most sensitive information are all facing constant cyberattacks and reviews by the enemy.

Cyber terrorism could also become more attractive as the real and virtual worlds become more closely coupled, with automobiles, appliances, and other devices attached to the Internet.

Further, the next generation of terrorists will grow up in a digital world, with ever more powerful and easy-to-use hacking tools at their disposal.

Cyberattacks have become a permanent fixture on the international scene because they have become easy and cheap to launch. Basic computer literacy and a modest budget can go a long way toward invading a country's cyberspace.

I am well aware of the facts presented by numerous security experts on the many ways in which the United States' digital networks have come under siege by cybercriminals and under daily assault by hackers in league with various foreign governments.

We face cyber threats from state-sponsored hackers, hackers for hire, global cyber syndicates, and terrorists. They seek our state secrets, our trade secrets, our technology, and our ideas - things of incredible value to all of us. They seek to strike our critical infrastructure and to harm our economy.

Should we fear hackers? Intention is at the heart of this discussion.