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The new head of the U.S. Cyber Command, Gen. Keith Alexander, testified Thursday before the House Armed Services Committee outlining threats faced by Pentagon networks in Afghanistan at the hands of "hacktivists" intent on infiltrating power and financial grids, The Christian Science Monitor reported.

Alexander, recently back from a deployment from an "expeditionary cybersupport" unit, told the committee, "We're not where we need to be" in preventing such attacks."

Officials say cyber-terrorists have been able to steal key data from U.S. troops including information on convoy supply routes, the Monitor said.

There are more than 15,000 different computer networks encompassing 7 million computers on about 4,000 military installations throughout the Department of Defense networks, Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said.

Every hour there are about 250,000 attempted attacks on those networks, Alexander said.

"How are we going to defend this network in crisis?" Alexander asked rhetorically as he admitted his command in the National Security Agency was struggling for answers.

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