Predicting Malicious Behavior: Tools and Techniques for Ensuring Global Security

Chapter 6

Future Threats to Our National Security

It is clear that the future is not a repeat of the past. Since 9/11, technology has increased at an astounding pace, our economy is in trouble, our resources have been stretched across wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we have had political crises and on occasion stalemates in Congress. Adversary behavior is a result of context, and the context in which we find ourselves today is unique. If we are simply looking for a repeat of the past, we won't be prepared for the new threats that we've never witnessed before.

Most agree that risk equals threat plus vulnerability. The rapidly expanding world of technology has assisted global interdependencies and interconnectedness in many positive ways. New vulnerabilities have been generated as a result of the increased capability to share information almost instantly. If we add the multitude of adversary attacks directed against the United States using technology as an assist, threat has increased as well. This places us within a new risk category—high. We must assume that planned attacks against the United States are based on the duality of both vulnerabilities we possess and threat of credible adversary attacks.

The best way to view threat is to process successful attacks in the past. Adversaries tend to repeat what has worked in the past—but with variation. It is the anticipation of variation that is the challenge.

This chapter reports on the results of numerous behavior analyses completed ...