U.S. At Risk of cyberattacks, experts say

ACM TechNews states that the next large-scale military or terrorist attack against the United States could be launched by hackers half a world away through cyberspace, which internet security experts claim could be just as devastating to the U.S. eonomy and infrastructure as a bombing attack.

Last week's attack on the former Soviet republic of Georgia last week wherein a Russian military offensive was preceded by an internet assault that overwhelmed Georgia's governmental websites indicates a new kind of cyberwar, one for which the U.S. is not prepared.

"Nobody's come up with a way to prevent this from happening, even here in the U.S.," said Tom Burling, acting chief executive of Tulip Systems, an Atlanta, Georgia, Web-hosting firm that volunteered its Internet servers to protect the nation of Georgia's Web sites from malicious traffic.

"The U.S. is probably more Internet-dependent than any place in the world. So to that extent, we're more vulnerable than any place in the world to this kind of attack," Burling added. "So much of what we're doing [in the United States] is out there on the Internet, and all of that can be taken down at once."

For details, see CNN.com/technology.