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Where the United States
stands in protecting its citizens
An interactive presentation

Stories by John Yaukey, Gannett News Service
New law will mean closer monitoring of foreign visitors

Northwest Indian tribe carves totem to heal
New York City

Moussaoui a prolific filer of accusatory motions

Splitting INS causes critics to take sides in sensitive divorce

Push to improve tracking of foreign students off to shaky start

Critics question domestic, overseas detentions

Coordination, cooperation continue to challenge
public health system

When, how to make smallpox vaccine available still debated

Cargo shipping poses threat to energy supply

Have homeland security concerns gone too far?

Lawmakers struggle on dealing with Iraq

War on terrorism faces hurdle from Arab intellectuals
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Cyber attack
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A cyber attack by terrorists could be potentially devastating, but a large-scale assault would be extremely difficult to execute, experts say.
The most feared scenario involves using computers and weapons, such as explosives, to bomb a dam or similar targets, then paralyze the responders’ 911 system.
Experts at the FBI’s National Infrastructure Protection Center believe the al-Qaida terrorist network wants to use this two-pronged strategy on American targets, but little is known about how competent these terrorists are with computers.
Most of the evidence is anecdotal, but it suggests terrorists may at least be testing security on American networks. Last fall, law enforcement officials noticed a suspicious pattern of attempts to crack security on Silicon Valley utility networks launched by computers in the Middle East and South Asia.
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RED FLAG
More than 70 percent of information technology professionals surveyed by the Business Software Alliance believe there will be a major cyber attack, or at least an attempt at one, against the United States in the next 12 months.
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More than 70 percent of power and energy companies recently surveyed suffered at least one attempted cyberattack during the first six months of 2002, compared with 57 percent for the previous six-month period. It’s impossible to know how many attacks were launched by terrorists seeking to do serious damage or hackers looking to cause mischief.
Despite increasingly sophisticated security, critical computer networks remain vulnerable. A recently discovered and repaired vulnerability in a data transmission standard known as ASN1 could have been exploited to bring down telephone networks and airport communications systems.
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Gannett News Service special report

U.S. battling image as arrogant superpower
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Interactive documentary:
CLEARING THE SKIES

Interactive documentary:
A YEAR OF RECOVERY

USA TODAY database
list of dead and missing

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All contents copyright 2002,
Gannett News Service
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