Newest cyber threat will be data manipulation, US intelligence chief says

• James Clapper calls data deletion or manipulation 'next push of the envelope'
• US digital networks currently threatened by wide-scale data theft

US intelligence chiefs are warning Congress that the next phase of escalating online data theft is likely to involve the manipulation of digital information.

A "cyber armageddon", long imagined in Washington as a catastrophic event of digitally triggered damage to physical infrastructure, is less likely than "cyber operations that will change or manipulate data", the US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, told the House intelligence committee on Wednesday.