ONE of US President Barack Obama's closest cyber security confidantes has warned of a potential loss of life from "cyber wars" and says that all political leaders should expect to be spied on.

Melissa Hathaway urged the Abbott government to ensure that the National Broadband Network was equipped to deal with cyber attacks because "the more connected you become as a country, the higher value you are to hackers".

Cyber wars could see hackers waging a virtual war against a country's key infrastructure and destabilising it.

"I think we'll probably see it (cyber war) in our lifetime," Ms Hathaway told The Australian in Sydney last week.

"We haven't had our big wake-up call yet and I'm hoping that we'll address the problems before we have a wake-up call."

She said if a lethal computer virus were to hit the desalination plants in one of the driest countries in the world, Jordan, for example, it would lead to deaths.

"If you think of the Shamoon-like virus against like what we saw with Saudi Aramco against another major infrastructure ... let's say that happened against desalination plants (in Jordan) and you can't have water in your country - that would lead to loss of life," Ms Hathaway said.

She was referring to the Shamoon virus that eroded 70 per cent of one of the world's most valuable companies, Saudi Aramco, in August.

The state-owned oil company had its documents, spreadsheets, emails and files replaced with an image of a burning American flag.

Aramco had to shut down its corporate network and disable employees' email and internet access to stop the virus from spreading, The New York Times reported.

The company's oil production operations were not affected as it was segregated from its internal communications network.

Closer to home albeit less sinister, hackers linked to Anonymous Indonesia upped the ante against Australia last week by crippling the Australian Secret Intelligence Service's website in fresh retaliation against Canberra over spying allegations. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation's website was knocked offline for two to three hours before being restored. Anonymous Indonesia claimed responsibility for the act.

Anonymous Indonesia has claimed to have breached more than 170 websites of Australian businesses and organisations.

It vowed revenge after it emerged Australia allegedly used its Jakarta embassy for spying activities.

Matters are bound to escalate with news yesterday that Australian spies were allegedly eavesdropping on the Indonesian President's mobile phone.

Ms Hathaway said just like Mr Obama, "all leaders" should expect to be spied on.

When Mr Obama won his first term in office, he had to fight hard to hang on to his trusty BlackBerry.

"The President still has his BlackBerry," she said. "It's a secure BlackBerry. He has it all (including a secure iPhone). We didn't make him give up his technology, we just made his technology a little bit more secure."

Ms Hathaway said "people are going to try to learn what he's (Mr Obama) talking about, whether it's another government or just a reporter".

"Everybody wants to know what the President is thinking and doing," Ms Hathaway said.

Her claims come after it emerged that the White House was allegedly monitoring German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone calls on her Nokia handset. Ms Hathaway said the choice of mobile device was not the issue, rather it was the type of security wrapped around it because "none of them are designed to be secure".

On the NBN, she said the Abbott government should ensure that steps were taken to secure the network before it was fully deployed.

AusCERT had previously raised similar concerns, saying NBN Co was treating security as a "bolt-on" extra.

"The more connected you become as a country the higher value you are to hackers because you have the high-speed platform, the best computers across the best infrastructure to do whatever it is that they want to do," Ms Hathaway said.

"(Australia should) take the measures to reduce the risk now and not wait until you've got it fully operational, deployed and then you're like 'oh, wow I haven't thought about that'."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/technology/us-fears-cyber-war-could-be-deadly/story-fn4htb9o-1226762800131

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Notice how the Indonesians are already using these tactics against our own companies and our security agency,via Anon Indonesia

How very hypocritical of them to now act the injured party over something that has gone on for many years.  All the western countries do it and Snowdon in Russia, who also do it on the rest, must delight them in this stirring up of Muslims.

As for the left media trying to frighten people that their phone calls and emails are being listened too.

Forget it unless of course you are a terrorist using certain key words which the big Krays listen out for and then send off to be analysed by a human in all types of communications and then discarded if trivial in their eyes.

Not interested in anything other than security of the soverign country.

Bit like the CCTV camera's watch out for trouble on our city streets etc. Nothing the lawful citizen does is kept as not required.

And Indonesia will be doing it to us unless of course we use encrypted phones etc for our PM and top officials discussing "security matters"

Mind you WW1 started with 1 incident in a country of no real importance is the thought that came to me on hearing of their Ambassador being recalled.

Islam v the West is brewing particularly hot in Europe where their governments are way in front of ours on the problem of Muslim immigration and the problems and outcomes.