Cyber attacks replace terrorism as leading threat against US

WASHINGTON: US intelligence leaders said for the first time on Tuesday that cyber attacks and cyber espionage have supplanted terrorism as the top security threat facing the United States. That stark assessment, in an annual "worldwide threat" briefing that covered concerns as diverse as North Korea's belligerence and Syria's civil war, was reinforced in remarks by the spy chiefs before the Senate Intelligence Committee. 

They expressed concern that computer technology is evolving so quickly it is hard for security experts to keep up.

"In some cases, the world is applying digital technologies faster than our ability to understand the security implications and mitigate potential risks," James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, told the committee.

In written testimony, Clapper softened his analysis somewhat, playing down the likelihood of catastrophic attacks on the United States in the near term - either through digital technologies, or from foreign or domestic militants employing traditional violence.

But this year's annual threat briefing underscored how, a decade after the Iraq war began and nearly two years after the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, digital assaults on government and computer networks have supplanted earlier security fears.

On Monday, White House national security adviser Tom Donilon, citing complaints from US businesses about alleged Chinese cyber espionage, said the issue is a growing challenge to economic relations between the United States and China.

China said on Tuesday it was willing to meet Donilon's request that Beijing talk with the United States about cyber security.