A broad-ranging survey of technology leaders, scholars, industry officials, and interested members of the public finds that most experts expect attacks on the network infrastructure in the coming decade. Some argue that serious assaults on the internet infrastructure will become a regular part of life.

This survey finds there is a strong across-the-board consensus that the internet will become so important to users in the coming decade that the network itself will become an inviting target for attack. By a nearly 3-1 margin, the experts in this survey expressed worry about the vulnerability of the internet and the likelihood of an attack on the underlying infrastructure within the next ten years. Some 66% agreed with the following prediction: At least one devastating attack will occur in the next 10 years on the networked information infrastructure or the country’s power grid. As one expert wrote, “A simple scan of the growing number and growing sophistication of the viral critters already populating our networks is ample evidence of the capacity and motivation to disrupt.” Eleven percent disagreed with the prediction and 7% challenged it, including some who argued that they did not expect any attack to be serious enough to involve loss of life or a very long outage.