Potential for a "Cyber Pearl Harbor"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/us/politics/03intel.html

begin quote from nytimes online article above:
The decision by Mr. Blair to begin his annual testimony before Congress with the cyber threat points up the concerns among American intelligence officials about the potentially devastating consequences of a coordinated attack on the nation’s technology apparatus, sometimes called a “Cyber Pearl Harbor.” end quote

I have been researching about this lately online. It appears that another country could theoretically conduct a "Cyber Pearl Harbor" against the United States and might get away with claiming it was either someone else(some other nation) or a Mafia organized crime kind of attack and bring down internet business and communications within the United STates or Europe or both for some time.

But in an even worse scenario a nation (or organized crime) could shut down all web based computer transactions and communications which could allow a blind spot for a nation to conduct a physical attack against the U.S., Canada and/or the European Union.

The vulnerabilities shown to the cyberintelligence community during the attack on Google has shown many that all the old rules of cyberspace are now "out the window".