One of the positive peripheral results from the flurry of reactions to the movie The Interview, was a media focus on cyber-terrorism. The recognition of cyber-attacks has been slow to evolve but is gaining traction.

In the United States’ last major threat-assessment document, prepared during the final year of the Bush Administration, the term “cyber-threat” is mentioned fewer than 10 times. Last year’s assessment, prepared by the Obama Administration, mentions “cyber-terrorism” fewer than 100 times. The recently released joint intelligence threat-assessment document mentioned cyber-terrorism more than 1,000 times.

C-SPAN recently televised the briefing to the U.S. House Intelligence committee by the National Security Agency (NSA) and CIA. As redacted as I am sure it was, it was still chilling. Malware (most likely introduced by China years ago) has been identified in several locations in the infrastructure for the nation’s power grid and water purification and delivery systems. Although this specific threat has been neutralized, the idea of a foreign government or other groups planting a latent threat that can be activated when and if the mood strikes is very unsettling.

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