(MintPress) – The Obama administration issued a dire warning this week, claiming hacktivist groups like WikiLeaks, LulzSec and others could target U.S. companies and expropriate confidential data worth billions of dollars.
A new administration-wide strategy designed to counter the onslaught of cyber attacks from hackers was presented at an event in Washington and featured a presentation from Attorney General Eric Holder. The new strategy for countering the cyberattacks against U.S. corporations was outlined in the report, “Administration Strategy On Mitigating The Theft Of U.S. Trade Secrets.”
Cyber attacks present a “steadily increasing threat to America’s economy and national security interests,” said Holder.
Historically, WikiLeaks and LulzSec have sought to expose corruption and criminal activity within governments. By relying upon informants to leak diplomatic cables, internal documents and classified correspondence, WikiLeaks gained a following for uncovering U.S. crimes against humanity during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.
Footage taken from an Apache helicopter shows the willful killing of Iraqi civilians and journalists. The video titled, “Collateral Murder,” was leaked to WikiLeaks by Bradley Manning, a soldier held for more than 1,000 days without trial for exposing criminal activity within the military.
Because of WikiLeaks’ Iraq War Logs, statistics revealing high numbers of civilian casualties in the Iraq War 2003-2011 were released. Estimates on the number of Iraqi deaths is now standing at a staggering 111,000.
This warning from the Obama administration comes after the Chinese military reportedly stole massive amounts of U.S. government data and corporate trade secrets earlier this month. The Obama administration has yet to formally respond to the incident, but is considering fines and other punitive measures that would affect bilateral trade relations between the two countries.
The latest attack is part of years of cyber attacks against the United States. On Monday, Mandiant, a Virginia-based cybersecurity firm, released a report that tied a secret Chinese military unit in Shanghai to years of cyberattacks against U.S. companies. After analyzing breaches that affected more than 140 U.S. companies, Mandiant concluded that they can all be linked to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Unit 61398.
The U.S. government relies increasingly upon contractors like Mandiant to uncover Internet security breaches. Mandiant and the broader cybersecurity private sector could see a sizable increase in earnings with the Holder presentation this week, already a $30 billion per year industry.
Mandiant has reported earnings of $100 million in business last year, up 60 percent from the year before.
This will likely be coupled with new legislation increasing federal surveillance of Internet activities.
Cyber attacks whether coming from a foreign government or a group of hackers pose a viable threat to U.S. national security. Critics caution that legislation aimed at preventing future attacks could imperil freedoms for average Internet users, which has been seen through the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) — all proposed as ways to stop the proliferation of pirated material on the Internet in 2011.
After mass public opposition and online protests from groups decrying the restrictions on Internet freedoms, the proposed bills died in committee.