A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, John P. Avlon, wrote: "We know that al-Qaeda is interested in cyber terrorism". There is substantial evidence terrorist groups are interested in launching cyber-attacks against the U.S., and more precisely our water supply. According to the terrorist expert Magnus Ranstorp, an al-Qaeda safe house in Pakistan devoted the bulk of its time to studying Internet attacks and many of their computers contained files of schematics of U.S. dams. The engineering software found was used for simulating catastrophic failure and flooding of populated areas. Ranstorp added, there were files detailing the SCADA systems, with critical infrastructure information including, electrical grids, nuclear plants, oil and gas pipelines, dams, railroads, water storage, and distribution facilities. Federal authorities found architectural and engineering software related to water-retaining structures on computers that were indirectly tied to Osama bin Laden (Kabay, 2010). .
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Former U.S. Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, stated to Congressional Republicans "They could contaminate [cities'] water supplies, or shut down the power grid across large parts of the country." He added: "A cyber-attack perpetrated by nation states or violent extremist groups could be as destructive as the terrorist attack of 9/11" (Usborne, 2012). Because of the sheer force and might of the U.S. military more terrorist groups and at least two dozen countries, including China and Russia, are making strides in "asymmetrical warfare" strategies which target U.S. computer systems. These groups and nation states are finding electronic and cyber warfare to be an easier and more cost effective way to penetrate our defenses (Kabay, 2010).
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Up to this point, relatively small breaches to our systems have produced minimal damage in the grand scheme of things. However, a coordinated cyber-attack against the U.
