While the US government maintains that it hasn't launched any big hacker attacks, officials appear to be working on rules for when that will happen.
According to reports on Friday, US President George Bush has signed a secret directive instructing the government to develop rules for how and when the government would attack enemy computer networks electronically.
An article in the Washington Post said that the federal government has yet to launch a large-scale cyberattack, but the Pentagon continues to develop cyberweapons. The report says the administration is considering ways to use cyberweapons to disable radar and electrical facilities and disrupt phone service.
Michael A. Vatis, director of the Institute for Security Technology Studies at Dartmouth College in the US and former director of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center, said the government needs policies for how and when it should respond to a cyberattack from a terrorist organisation or nation. "Right now, there aren't any hard rules," he said.
News source: ITNews - Bush developing cyberwar rules
