§ Lord Kennetasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they disagree with the conclusions of the task force appointed by the US Defense Department's Defense Science Board that "information warfare" will be an inexpensive means of causing chaos in both military and civilian systems given that information on how to break into systems is freely available on the Internet, and what resources, financial and of personnel, the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Trade and Industry are devoting to the study of these forms of warfare.
Earl HoweThe Ministry of Defence and the Department of Trade and Industry agree that the potential nature of "information warfare" is such that considerable disruption could be inexpensively caused to any computer systems that were not designed and operated to resist such attack.
Within the Ministry of Defence (as in the US Department of Defense) systems are designed with features to reduce the possibility of successful attack. It would not be appropriate to comment on the details of these security features, nor on the resources expended in developing such designs. However, the potential threat is kept under constant review and efforts to counter it are adjusted accordingly.
So far as the Department of Trade and Industry is concerned, this is one of the information security issues being addressed by that Department's Information Security Policy Group dedicated to helping UK business manage information security effectively and to represent the information security interests of business both within the UK and internationally.