Nato gives cyber-war warning

Nato is treating the current and future threat of cyber-warfare as seriously as the risk of a missile strike, a conference in London heard yesterday. Suleyman Anil, the security organisation's senior official in charge of strategy against computer attacks, told the E-Crime congress that attacks on government systems were increasing and that the damage they were capable of inflciting was growing. Last year, a group of hackers believed to be from China penetrated the Pentagon's computer network, while Estonia, a Nato member and proponent of hi-tech government, was attacked by unknown hackers thought to be working for Russia.