When most people think of cyber warfare, they are probably thinking of a battle taking place sometime in the future. The other thought most people probably have is they think the United States as a being a leader in this area.
The truth is cyber warfare is already here and the United States is lagging far behind. Not only that but a majority of all services deemed as critical infrastructure are in the hands or under control of the private sector.
Currently 30 countries are known to have viable offensive and defensive cyber warfare capabilities with the top potential threats recognized as being Russia, China, and believe it or not North Korea, which is also the most dangerous country to have these capabilities. North Korea has already taken out systems run by the U.S. Treasury, Secret Service, and Federal Trade Commission.
Cyber warfare is a reality in today's world - Timeline of Cyber Attacks since May 2006 - which will likely be used in combination with conventional attacks and as stand alone attacks far into the future from here on.
While some point to these threats as fear mongering, unrealistic, and even as impossible to pull off I would venture to say they do not fully appreciate just how vulnerable we are should a massive attack bring down much of our infrastructure.
One thing to note about these types of attacks is the social engineering aspect, which no amount of security hardware or software can protect against. We need to better train employees to understand phishing attacks, to guard passwords, what to look and listen for during the social engineer aspect of any attack. Good security practices should incorporate continuous training with real world examples.
As the recent attacks against Google, Rackspace and others showed our private sector is just as much a target for malicious attacks. We must remain vigilant and proper training training is an important part of securing our networks.
See the Reference link below for more detailed information on this.