Richard Clarke, chairman of the president's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, recently spoke with Computerworld reporter Dan Verton about the nature and potential of the threat to the nation's critical infrastructure and what he sees as his biggest challenges with respect to national cybersecurity. Can you briefly explain the cybersecurity threat for those who still may not be sure who or what the enemy is. . .
Richard Clarke, chairman of the president's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board, recently spoke with Computerworld reporter Dan Verton about the nature and potential of the threat to the nation's critical infrastructure and what he sees as his biggest challenges with respect to national cybersecurity. Can you briefly explain the cybersecurity threat for those who still may not be sure who or what the enemy is?

A: There's a spectrum of threats out there, some of which we experience every day. That spectrum runs from [individuals] who simply vandalize Web pages to those who conduct nuisance denial-of-service attacks. That's on the low end, which is usually conducted by young hackers -- so-called script kiddies. In the middle, you have criminals who conduct fraud and industrial espionage online. The middle range of threats is usually carried out by organized crime, companies and also nation-states.

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