This report summarizes the current and historical electronic intrusion threat to U.S. National Security and Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) telecommunications. The information in this report will provide users with the means to define the electronic intrusion threat environment in terms of potential hostile actions by intruders using electronic devices to degrade, manipulate, or compromise NS/EP telecommunication operations.

This report is intended to serve as an awareness document for the NS/EP telecommunications community—it does not constitute a formal threat assessment. The analysis presented in this document is based entirely on open source information. No proprietary or classified documents were used as source materials for this report. Although the accuracy of some open source information cannot be independently verified, information related to the interests, motivations, and knowledge of computer intruders is valuable in understanding the threat posed to NS/EP telecommunications.

A companion document, The Summary Threat to National Security and Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP) Telecommunications, will be published by the Defense Intelligence Agency in October 1994. That document relies on classified source material and focuses more broadly on the hostile threat to NS/EP telecommunications, but includes a summary of the electronic intrusion threat based on classified information. Another aspect of the threat posed to NS/EP telecommunications includes natural and technological disasters. The Natural and Technological Disasters Threats to NS/EP Telecommunications report, which was published in August 1993 by the Office of the Manager, National Communications System (OMNCS), provides a description of those threats and the probability of their occurrence. The exhibit below illustrates the relationship between these different reports.