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(2) Computer Accidents, Sabotage and Critical Infrastructure Disruption — Hazard Identification. The President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (PCCIP) recently reported that there is increasing threat that the U.S. could suffer something similar to an "Electronic Pearl Harbor" (Rubin, 1998). Networked information systems present new security challenges in addition to the benefits they offer. Long- term power outages could cause massive computer outages, with severe economic impacts such as loss of sales, credit checking, banking transactions, and ability to communicate and exchange information and data. "Today, the right command sent over a network to a power generating station's control computer could be just as effective as a backpack full of explosives, and the perpetrator would be harder to identify and apprehend," states the PCCIP report. With the growth of a computer-literate population, increasing numbers of people possess the skills necessary to attempt such an attack. The resources to conduct a cyber attack are now easily accessible everywhere. A personal computer and an Internet service provider anywhere in the world are enough to cause a great deal of harm. Threats include: • Human error; • Insider use of authorized access for unauthorized disruptive purposes; • Recreational hackers - with or without hostile intent; • Criminal activity - for financial gain, to steal information or services, or organized crime; • Industrial espionage; • Terrorism - including various disruptive operations; and • National intelligence - information warfare, intended disruption of military operations. The effects of such activities may take the form of disruption of air traffic controls, train switches, banking transfers, police investigations, commercial Indian River County Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan Basic Page 74