Newport, R.I., July 24, 2002 -- Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT and ITB) and the United States Naval War College today begin a three-day war gaming exercise to assess readiness within the United States for cyber-attacks against energy grids, telecommunications, financial institutions and the Internet itself. The war game exercise, called "Digital Pearl Harbor," is a scenario-based assessment of technology-enabled vulnerabilities to Homeland Defense.

High-level findings of the Digital Pearl Harbor War Game, held at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., will be released in August to the public at www.gartner.com. A more comprehensive report will be delivered to Gartner clients. Certain findings may be withheld in the interest of national security.

The participants in this game will, jointly, design a large-scale cyber-attack on the United States. Using their knowledge of the individual industries, they will judge the most effective methods of attack and how the attacks on the different industries might interact. They will also judge the information requirements for successful attacks and the effort necessary for terrorists to obtain this information without compromising their identities.

"While direct terrorism is the true focus of national security today, we also must assess how cyber-terrorism could contribute to crippling our communications, economic and energy infrastructures," said French Caldwell, Gartner vice president and research director. "By creating these technology terrorism scenarios, we will gain knowledge that will assist in the development of appropriate countermeasures."

"The leadership in our country has stated clearly that there will be more terrorist attacks against America," said Dr. Kenneth Watman, Director of War Gaming at the Naval War College. "Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of ways terrorists can strike our society, and cyber-terrorism is one of them. The goal of this game is to assist the participants in identifying what forms such an attack might take and how to best react to this possibility."

For more information about Gartner and its comprehensive security research, visit www.gartner.com.