Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Abstract : STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD: Chairman Feinstein, Vice Chairman Bond, Members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to offer the Intelligence Community's assessment of threats to US national security. I am pleased to be accompanied today by the Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research. The strategic landscape has changed considerably for US interests over the past year. We see some improvements, but also several entrenched problems and slow progress in some areas for the foreseeable future. Several large-scale threats to fundamental US interests will require increased attention, and it is on one of these threats that I will focus our initial discussion. The national security of the United States, our economic prosperity, and the daily functioning of our government are dependent on a dynamic public and private information infrastructure, which includes telecommunications, computer networks and systems, and the information residing within. This critical infrastructure is severely threatened. This cyber domain is exponentially expanding our ability to create and share knowledge, but it is also enabling those who would steal, corrupt, harm or destroy the public and private assets vital to our national interests. The recent intrusions reported by Google are a stark reminder of the importance of these cyber assets, and a wake-up call to those who have not taken this problem seriously. Companies who promptly report cyber intrusions to government authorities greatly help us to understand and address the range of cyber threats that face us all.