US flank exposed on cyber war front: Hayden

LAS VEGAS — Former US spy master and retired general Michael Hayden warned on Thursday that the country's "cyber flank" was exposed and it was losing clout to influence rules of war on the Internet."Our flank is totally exposed," Hayden said at the "Black Hat" computer security gathering in Las Vegas, comparing the nation's tactical position on the Internet to a battle of land troops."If tomorrow they show up on that flank they are going to roll down."Black Hat founder Jeff Moss equated the situation to the nuclear faceoff between superpowers during the Cold War years of his childhood."You could wake up any day and get nuked, but you got up every day and went on with your life anyway," Moss said.Hayden dodged giving his assessment of the threat level on the Internet, saying people were abusing the term "cyber war" by applying it to anything unpleasant that happens on the Internet.The former head of both the CIA and the top secret National Security Agency dismissed the idea of labeling online espionage as acts of war since it is standard practice between nations."If you understand the meaning of war to include intelligence gathering, sure there is cyber war," Hayden said. "We don't call sucking out information an attack. That's exploitation. States do that all the time."The retired general said he was in "absolute awe and wonderment" at the Chinese cyber espionage campaign but that they were certainly not the only nation doing it and the United States is "actually very good at this."There isn't a country on the planet that has promised to refrain from cyber spying, according to Hayden."Quit whining, act like a man and defend yourself," he concluded, quoting advice his father gave him when he was a boy.He faulted an Internet built on the premise of quickly and freely sharing information for creating an open landscape that gives attackers an edge over defenders."You guys make the cyber world look like the north German plain and then you bitch and moan because you get invaded," he told a Black Hat audience. "

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