COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—A military commander says the U.S. isn’t in a cyberwar, but critical networks are being “contested” and the threat of any deliberate or accidental disaster is formidable.
Air Force Maj. Gen. David Senty, chief of staff of U.S. Cyber Command, didn’t identify who is contesting U.S. networks, or detail the nature of any deliberate threats. He spoke Thursday at a homeland security symposium in Colorado Springs.
Senty says talk of cyberwar has been exaggerated but he says mistakes or deliberate attacks could create havoc on financial, utility and transportation computer networks.
He says dozens of people were killed in Siberia in 2009 and a hydroelectric turbine was destroyed because remote operators typed in the wrong computer commands.
