Cyberattack Could Easily Cripple US

The internet infrastructure of the US may be vulnerable to a cyberattack similar to those launched against Georgia before and during the Russian invasion, CNN reports. Large-scale online attacks, meant to overwhelm and shut down internet servers from anywhere in the world, are cheap and relatively easy to execute—and would catch America underprepared, experts say.

"The US 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," says one internet security expert. Others say the risk is overblown: "We can command so much bandwidth that it's hard to overwhelm our servers,” says another security researcher. (More cyberwarfare stories.)