CIA war game to simulate potential attack

The CIA is conducting a war game this week to simulate an unprecedented, September 11-like electronic assault against the United States.

The three-day exercise, known as Silent Horizon, will test the ability of government and industry to respond to escalating internet disruptions over many months.

The simulated attacks in Charlottesville, Virginia, were carried out five years in the future by a fictional alliance of anti-American organisations that included anti-globalisation hackers.

The national security simulation was significant because its premise - a devastating cyberattack that affects government and parts of the economy on the scale of the 2001 suicide hijackings - contradicts assurances by US counterterrorism experts that such effects from a cyberattack are highly unlikely.