Iranian Cyber Army Hacks Twitter

Literally just minutes ago, Twitter was (and, at the time of this writing, is still under their control) hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army and the home page was switched with the web page for the Cyber Army.The web page reads, "U.S.A Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But They Don't, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian People To ..................... NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA? WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST ;)TAKE CARE."

Eloquent diction aside, this could be a cause for concern. With the advent of rapidly evolving technology comes a greater threat of cyber warfare.

We, the U.S., are working on a cyber-defense project that would require $500 million investment per year on the outset and could reach the billion dollar level over some time. *1

It should be stated that, "There is no doubt that such a serious national vulnerability is a real and present danger.

This has been affirmed by a number of distinguished bodies, including the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection, the National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Defense Science Board on Information Warfare Defense." *2

If our vulnerabilities were to be exploited, the economic consequences could be dire and lead to a degradation of public trust with concomitant long-term suppression of economic growth, placing quality of life in a retrograde and lead to a severe erosion of the public's confidence that their government can adequately protect their security.

We have seen the damage done in past attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Composite damages resulting from amateur cyber attacks have been estimated to have caused at least $12 billion in 2001 alone.A cyber attack on our national infrastructure could easily equate to a 100-fold amplification, which could amount to several hundred billion dollars in damages to the U.S. economy.

President Obama states that the U.S. has reached a "transformational moment" since computer networks are probed and attacked millions of times a day. He continues to say that, "It's now clear this cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation," and going so far as to say "We're not prepared as we should be, as a government or as a country."

While Twitter may only be down for a short while and teenage hipsters worldwide will lament over not being able to share constant and oh-so-important developments in their significant lives, to others it could be a sort of foreshadowing, detailing that countries like Iran and China are more than capable of subverting our national infrastructure and delivering crippling financial blows.

Edit: Twitter is now back online.

1 'iranian cyber army' hacks twitter. (2009, December 17). Retrieved from http://lucire.com/insider/20091218/iranian-cyber-army-hacks-twitter/
2.A Letter from concerned scientists. (2002, February 27). Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cyberwar/etc/letter.html