25 Years After 9/11, New 'Black Swan' Threats Test America's Defenses
WASHINGTON – The National Security Agency is preparing for its biggest reorganizations in a decade. The agency announced it will be reshaping around some of the fastest-growing threats facing the U.S., including China, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence.
The move comes as a new bipartisan congressional review warns that, 25 years after 9/11, America could once again be vulnerable to an attack it never saw coming.
The House Intelligence Committee finds that post-9/11 reforms have helped prevent any similar terror attack, but over the last quarter century the threat environment has drastically changed.
"The next strategic attack against the United States may not involve hijacked airplanes. It may begin in cyberspace. It may target our power grid or telecommunications systems. It may involve artificial intelligence, biological threats, economic coercion, or capabilities we have not yet fully contemplated," said Arkansas Rep. Rick Crawford (R), the committee Chairman.
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The report devotes one recommendation to what it calls the "Black Swan" risks of advancing AI, including America's enemies gaining access to knowledge and capabilities that once required far greater expertise and resources.
"Simply put, what artificial intelligence allows a terrorist group to do is gather massive amounts of information about a potential target of an attack, massive amounts of information about how to conduct an attack...it makes them better able to build lethal devices more rapidly and more precisely," said former DHS official John Cohen, now with the Center for Internet Security.
Cohen says the threat has also moved from terrorist training camps overseas to online communities.
"Discord groups, you know, internet-based collectives, gaming communities, even encrypted communities...that is the battle space where we need to be focusing our intelligence gathering and our analytic activities," he told CBN News.
Cohen says preventing the next major attack will require the U.S. to focus its intelligence-gathering where today's threats are emerging, using the same advanced technology now being embraced by America's enemies.
"The terrorist threat continues to evolve. The challenge facing law enforcement and security officials is whether they will evolve as quickly as the threat is," he explained.
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About The Author
Caitlin Burke serves as National Security Correspondent and a general assignment reporter for CBN News. She has also hosted the CBN News original podcast, The Daily Rundown.
Some of Caitlin’s recent stories have focused on the national security threat posed by China, America’s military strength, and vulnerabilities in the U.S. power grid. She joined CBN News in July 2010, and over the course of her career, she has had the opportunity to cover stories both domestically and abroad.
Caitlin began her news career working as a production assistant in Richmond, Virginia, for the NBC affiliate WWBT. She is the oldest of seven children and is based in Washington, D.C., with her husband and daughter.
