Could the U.S. Armed Forces be crippled by a cyber-worm

The U.S. armed forces are still pushing ahead with trying to implement former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's visionary Future Combat Systems programs to centralize command, control and firepower of land, sea and air high-tech weapons systems high-tech headquarters where enemy forces could be shattered with minimal U.S. casualties and even minimal human troop involvement, like the ultimate video game made real. Rumsfeld committed the vast resources of the U.S. Department of Defense. So far, an estimated $160 billion has already been spent on the sprawling FCS programs with Boeing and the Science Applications International Corporation as the main contractors. The more the U.S. armed forces become dependent on efficiently integrated IT systems, as FCS requires, the more they could be vulnerable to being paralyzed by asymmetrical cyber-warfare attacks. This is a by no means hypothetical danger. All major nations are working on such programs with China by far the most active. The Department of Defense has acknowledged 79,000 cyber attacks on U.S. armed forces Web sites in period from mid-2004 to mid-2005, a disproportionate number of them appear to have been launched from Web sites located in China.