"A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones. The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military’s Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source.

"A survey of cyberspace says that the United States enjoys the honor of being the world's "top attack traffic source," accounting for 12 percent of all such malicious data—eight percent of the globe's in the third quarter of 2010. This could represent the activities of "infected hosts that are looking for other hosts to spread to, or it may represent brute force attempts to log in to other systems," according to the Akamai Corporation's David Belson.

The U.S. should counter computer-based attacks swiftly and strongly and act to thwart or disable a threat even when the attacker's identity is unknown, the director of the National Security Agency told Congress.

Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, who is the Obama administration's nominee to take on additional duties as head of the new Cyber Command, also said the U.S. should not be deterred from taking action against countries such as Iran and North Korea just because they might launch cyber attacks.

Countries around the world are preparing for cyberwarfare, according to a new report from McAfee. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United States have set up organizations to study cyberattacks and possibly trigger a physical response, for example. In fact, some international relationships could be described as a state of cyber-cold war, the report suggests.