14 DAY TRIAL // On Tuesday, the US Director of National Intelligence presented a report called “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community” before a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
The new report contains some interesting information, including details of what intelligence agencies think about terrorist organizations, hacktivists and cybercriminals.
According to the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, some terrorist organizations appear to be interested in developing offensive cyber capabilities. However, over the upcoming period, they will probably not do much because of the lack of resources, organizational limitations, and because they have other priorities.
As far as hacktivists are concerned, Clapper says that no major changes have been seen in their capabilities or intentions.
“Most hacktivists use short-term denial-of-service operations or expose personally identifiable information held by target companies, as forms of political protest,” Clapper noted in the report.
“However, a more radical group might form to inflict more systemic impacts—such as disrupting financial networks—or accidentally trigger unintended consequences that could be misinterpreted as a state-sponsored attack.”
The official believes cybercriminals are also threatening US economic interests. They’re a threat because the tools they sell on the black market might enable state or non-state actors to gain unauthorized access to critical infrastructure systems.
“In addition, a handful of commercial companies sell computer intrusion kits on the open market. These hardware and software packages can give governments and cybercriminals the capability to steal, manipulate, or delete information on targeted systems,” the report reads.
“Even more companies develop and sell professional-quality technologies to support cyber operations—often branding these tools as lawful-intercept or defensive security research products. Foreign governments already use some of these tools to target US systems.”