U.S. threat to the cyber terrorists; We may retaliate with force, say military chiefs.(News)

Byline: From Tom Leonard in New York

AMERICA may retaliate with military force against countries that sabotage its computers, according to the Pentagon's first ever strategy on how to fight escalating cyber attacks.

Anxious to contend with growing internet incursions linked to Russia and China, U.S. military chiefs have reportedly agreed that the most serious sabotage attempts should constitute an act of war.

The document - due to be published next month but whose contents were leaked to the Wall Street Journal - is designed to tackle a changing world in which computer hackers could cripple America's financial markets or public transport systems.

'If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a missile down one of your smokestacks,' a military official told the Journal. Officials said America wants to warn hostile countries that they cannot get away with cyber warfare with impunity.

Instead, the U.S. argues that the existing international rules of armed conflict will apply in cyberspace.

Consequently, its level of retaliation for a cyber attack would be in proportion to the same amount of 'death, damage, destruction or high-level disruption' caused by a conventional military attack. For 775 example, an attack on the transport system that closed down as much commerce as would a naval blockade could be considered an act of war, said James Lewis, a cyber-security expert who has advised the Barack Obama administration.

The 30-page Pentagon document will also stress the importance of finding a consensus in this area with allies such as Britain.

Last month, Chancellor George Osborne revealed the threat posed by computer attacks to the Government.

He warned that foreign intelligence agencies were trying to break into the Treasury computer system to steal information or spread viruses at the rate of more than one attack a day.

Whitehall has announced that an extra [pounds sterling]500million will be spent on bolstering cyber security.

Last year it emerged that MI5 and U.S. intelligence had warned hundreds of British and American companies two years earlier about the threat from Chinese governmentbacked hackers.

The U.S. continues to be targeted by a growing number of cyber attacks.

Only this weekend, Lockheed Martin, a key defence contractor and the American government's main IT provider, said it had repelled a 'significant and tenacious' assault on its computer systems.

Several other military contractors were also understood to have been targeted in the attack.

While Pentagon officials argue that the most sophisticated cyber attacks necessitate the resources of a government, identifying the country responsible is rarely easy.

Experts say America is not always the victim in such attacks, and the U.S. was blamed along with Israel for the development of the 2009 Stuxnet virus, a computer worm that targets industrial software, which sabotaged Iran's nuclear programme.

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