International regulation must be improved to avoid internet crime, currently estimated at $100 billion in losses annually, causing global catastrophe, some of the world's top crime experts have warned.

At a conference on global risks and "planetary emergencies" like cyberterrorism, climate change, nuclear weapons and the world's lagging energy supply, participants were not particularly optimistic with some arguing that the prospect of a global “knowledge society,” also made billions of individuals into potential superpowers.

Criminals have been able to hack into computer systems via the Internet and cut power to several cities, a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency analyst said this week.

Researchers who launched an experimental cyber attack caused a generator to self-destruct, alarming the federal government and electrical industry about what might happen if such an attack were carried out on a larger scale.

Finding proof that terrorists plan to launch cyberattacks against the United States is difficult, but the accessibility and vulnerability of the Internet to attack makes it a growing threat, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service.

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Botnets are secretly installing themselves on thousands or even millions of personal computers, banding these computers together into an unwitting army of zombies, and using the collective power of the dragooned network for spam and committing Internet crimes.

Scott Borg, the director and chief economist of the US Cyber Consequences Unit, a Department of Homeland Security advisory group, believes that attacks on computer networks are poised to escalate to full-scale disasters that could bring down companies, destroy power grids, and kill people.

Weak Internet security has already made portions of critical U.S. infrastructure vulnerable to attack, but over the next three years, a flood of new Internet-capable devices — from cell phones to laptop computers to a plethora of wired and wireless products — threatens to overwhelm current Internet defenses, a former Pentagon technology chief warns.

Businesses and government agencies must re-examine the growing threat of cyberterrorism to automated computer systems running power grids, dams and other industrial facilities, according to security experts.

Four years ago al Qaeda operatives were taking flying lessons. Today they are honing a new skill: hacking. How much damage could a cyberterrorist do to an electric grid or the Internet? We don't know yet.