CIA's Info Ops Team Hosts 3-Day Cyber Wargame

ScentCone writes "The CIA has booked some conference rooms and is working through a simulated 'digital Pearl Harbor' to see how government and industry handle a monster net attack from an imaginary future foe composed of anti-American and anti-globalization hackers. Having been accused of lacking imagination about potential terror attacks, they're using the exercise to better shape the government's roles in a variety of attack scenarios. The networking industry, it seems, is expected to always play a big part in detecting and thwarting such threats, as 9/11-scale economic disruption is a likely bad-guy objective."

Comments

In Soviet Russia...

[CypherXero]

The network attacks YOU!

Digital Pearl Harbor is Nice...

[neo5064]

But personally, I'm waiting for "Digital Hiroshima"

Comparison in slightly bad taste...

[strider44]

People compare September 11 with a lot of things, but comparing it with a crack-fest? I doubt that it's even *possible* to kill several thousand people with cracking, you could only cause extreme inconvenience.

Besides, security can be achieved through a couple of simple steps: Don't use Windows, use OS's designed with security in mind. Use SELinux or equivalent on mission critical nodes. And secondly, educate the users and gain a culture of safety.

Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste...

[James_Duncan8181]

What? Bringing down a power grid during rush hour, changing details of patient notes on a hospital network, or sending false messages and checking the content of sent messages all have the potential to kill.

Have you no imagination at all? ;)

Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste...

[voixderaison]

I suppose there are a variety of crack scenarios that would result in massive loss of life. Spoofing the air traffic control system in some fantastically improbably way might cause a few mid air collisions before the planes were grounded.

Launching a single nuclear missile would shoot past the mark by rather a lot. Let's hope the control systems for those things are not connected via some backdoor to to a network in turn connected via some other back door to a network connected to the internet, eh?

These crackfest doomsday scenarios are not preparing government for the real problems at hand, today. Consider the case reported by the New York Times last week :

"During a two-day period they watched as the intruder tried to break into more than 100 locations on the Internet and was successful in gaining root access to more than 50. "

It was probably a lone cracker, possibly a small group. rooting fifty boxes in a couple days. That was just a two day sample of a months long probably-one-man crackfest. Low level information theft poses a real threat to national security. Many government agencies are not even able to detect it.

By the way, it seems to be more popular in government circles to invoke September 11, probably because in the current climate it helps get funding. At least there is that perception.

Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste...

[flyingsquid]

Apparently the US managed to screw over the Russkies by doctoring some software and letting them steal it (from WWII onward, the Soviets engaged in industrial espionage on a massive scale); the software ran pipelines. From _At the Abyss_:

"In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds... The result was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space. While there were no physical casualties from the pipeline explosion, there was significant damage to the Soviet economy. Its ultimate bankruptcy, not a bloody battle or nuclear exchange, is what brought the Cold War to an end. In time the Soviets came to understand that they had been stealing bogus technology, but now what were they to do? By implication, every cell of the Soviet leviathan might be infected. They had no way of knowing which equipment was sound, which was bogus. All was suspect, which was the intended endgame for the operation."

You could wreak a lot of havoc on the American economy if you chose to. At present, I doubt many nations would be interested in that- it's just not in their interest. China, for instance, is making just way too much money off the U.S. economy to want to touch it. Even if we started exchanging shots over Taiwan I think they'd think hard before trying that. But what what about Al Qaeda?

"All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies. This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat. All Praise is due to Allah. So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah."

Bin Laden's ultimate goal probably isn't to kill American civilians, kill American troops, or defeat us militarily. He wants to attack our economy. That was definitely a large part of what 9/11 was about, and it's a very large part of what the ongoing insurgency is about (200 billion for this invasion by the end of 2005, with no end in sight. What's really shocking is that everybody is puzzling over the Iraqi insurgency's strategy, when bin Laden explicitly lays out his strategy). And it will be a very large part of any future attacks, which could concievably move into internet attacks. Carnage is part of it, sure. But if he can't bleed you physically, he's perfectly happy to bleed your bank account. Incidentally, I had to go to Al Jazeera to find that passage- CNN, those J-school dropouts, post a heavily edited version without even mentioning that it was edited.

Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste...

[thynk]

Hell, god forbid if the news started spending 10 minutes on each news story. Sure, that would only be 4 or 5 news stories a night, but it would be better to know something about a topic than just associate an emotion with a 30 second news clip.
Hell, god forbid /.ers actually start RTFA before posting, and keep posts on topic. :-)

While you do make a good point in that we associate emotions with events, I would find a news story that lasted 10 minutes to be probably 8 or 9 minutes of filler or opinion. The media has a hard enough time keeping bias out of the news with 30 seconds a clip, how much do you imagine there will be if we ask them to fill up 10 minutes? The purpose of a news article is to inform people of what is happening in the world, not to impart some deep understanding to everyone who watches it.

The truth does not matter. Everything can be spinned and made into an emotional issue. Everything can be rationalized.

The truth as defined by whom? There are 3 versions of every memory and story. 1st we have your side and how you remember it happening - this is the truth to you. Next we have my side and how I remember it happening - this is the truth to me. Next we have what really happened, but since no one is see it for what it really is it may as well not even exist. Remember, nothing ever happens exactly the way you remember it.

and even then that is not enough time to capture everything needed to understand a topic

While some places do a really good job of presenting ideas and concepts (PBS, Nova, Etc) 0 if you want to really understand a topic, don't rely on TV at all, or for that matter /. Go out and do some real research.

Hope you'll take what I said here as some constuctive feedback on posting and not much else :D

Re:Comparison in slightly bad taste...

[synthespian]

Incidentally, I had to go to Al Jazeera to find that passage- CNN, those J-school dropouts, post a heavily edited version without even mentioning that it was edited.

Yeah, I remember reading the original statement:
"And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. [When they pointed out that] for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than $500 billion.

Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.

As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.

And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.

It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is ... you."here)

Actually, at the time I was kind of shocked at the self-imposed censorship of the American media. Sometimes I think the USA has achieved a more effective way of brain-wahing than the Soviets could have ever dreamed of...No in-depth analysis in news media, no space for political discussion, people afraid to vent their political views, a presidential campagin that can only be won with loads of money, indirect elections for president, moralism, fear of "communism" (or, as the neo-macarthist term would have it today "anti-americanism"), etc. And, no, I'm, no a lefty.

Tis already happened!

[dj245]

The networking industry, it seems, is expected to always play a big part in detecting and thwarting such threats, as 9/11-scale economic disruption is a likely bad-guy objective."

Sadly my website http://www.rogertheshrubber.net/ has already fallen victim to the hordes of the digital pearl harbour. There is a pestilence upon this land. Nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.

"Anti-American and anti-globalization hackers"

[Raindance]

I'm not sure whether this is completely appropriate to include in a press release.

Insofar as the intelligence community is coming up with possible scenarios, yes, I think this is a possible scenario. And worth looking into.

Insofar as the government- MY government- is identifying and singling-out anti-globalization folks as "The Enemy" and "anti-American," I'm a bit frustrated. I'm an American who is also somewhat anti-globalization*.

So, thumbs up for doing some preparation that might actually matter. Thumbs down, however, for singling out anti-globalization as "The Enemy" and "anti-American."

You're the government. You have a responsibility to your citizens to not insult moderate views commonly held by U.S. citizens, however accidentally you do so. If you're going to put out press releases, hire some rhetoric Ph.Ds or something.

*There a lot of ins-and-outs to globalization. I'm against greedy globalization, which so far has unfortunately been rampant.

Re:People don't die when networks crash

[thynk]

It depends on what network is crashed. Crash the network of your local 911 and see how many people die because the operator isn't able to find the address of a heart patient who can't speak well enough during the attack to give thier address.

We've become very dependant on computers and networking. Sometimes, very critical systems are left wide open. I think that having them tested for security leaks is a good idea.

A friend of mine who is a consultant did a 26 page report on a small town police department's network, finding that he was able to access everthing on thier network, including personal and critical information from home, with out a user account on the network.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Bad Guys?

[Etcetera]

Defending yourself against the United States makes you a "bad guy?"

From the perspective of a citizen of the United States, yes.

Re:Simulation Games are useless

[CHESTER COPPERPOT]

"I am just saying the money that attracts top talents are with the corporations.

To some people money doesn't matter. Time and time again the military and intelligence communities attract hugely talented individuals because of the work environment. Dave Grossman talked about this in his book On Killing. There is a small minority of people who are talented warlike mischeif makers who given the right environment, ethical and monetary backing can go a long way to louse up the enemies day. Bruce Schneier says the same thing in Secrets and Lies. Examples of this in history are myriad. Google topics like the Tunnel Rats in vietnam. The bad guy mentality in the right environment attracts these guys.

You don't have to have to be a "bad guy" but being/thinking so is what separates the best intelligence and military personnel from the average. Obviously, you still need a 'good' value system but the 'bad guy' psyche still is needed.

It's even written in the vast majority of intelligence literature out there that the best overall intelligence guys are borderline 'bad guys'. Examples are myriad:

The original detective Eugène François Vidocq was the founding father of criminal investigation. He was a notorious bad guy whose innovations bolstered police intelligence gathering.

Michael Levine who was one of the top undercover agents ever assigned to the Drug Enforcement Agency said in an interview that "The secret to my success was ..... A police lieutenant, with whom I worked many years later, looked at me, after I had done, in one day, something like four or five undercover buys from different groups -- from Hispanics, from Blacks, from Whites -- and he was covering me along with my group. He said: "You know what the thing is about you, Levine? You're a guy who should've gone bad. You should have been a gangster. You should have been in jail. But somehow you turned out right. And that's why you're so ..." [convincing]. And I thought about it, and I thought about my youth and about the way I grew up, and I realized that there was a lot of truth in what he said. I was FROM the streets. The streets were in me. There was a thin line between me and the guys who I was working against. And that line was so thin that drug dealers couldn't see it. Do you understand? The line that separated them from me as a suspected agent was so thin that drug dealers could NEVER believe that I was an agent. And that's an attitude .... that's something you can't teach."

The CIA Case officer Gust Avrakotos who ran the covert operation arming the Mujahideen by proxy through Pakistan in the 1980's Afgan-Russian war was nicknamed 'Dr Dirty' by his CIA peers because he was such an aggressive rule-breaking intelligence operative who had an inherent 'bad guy' view of intelligence operations which helped him numerous times in executing deals inside and outside the CIA.

Ex US Army intelligence analyst Ralph Peters Essay "The Black Art of Intelligence" speaks that the best intelligence analysts have a specific talent for the job and that talent is an underlying understanding of the dark side of humanity and this talent is born not made.

I could go on and on. Of course, you don't have to be a bad guy or empathise to be good at the job. In fact having an organisation filled with these guys would be counter-productive. But, like I stated, what separates the good from the brilliant is this 'bad guy' mentality.

"The best soldiers have a seasoning of devilry." General A.P. Wavell

Slashdot has caught the political meme

[Anonymous Coward]

There used to be a time when you could comment on such articles without it being turned into a political diatribe. This article is damn interesting and there could be some awesome commentary by some /.'ers. However you political numbnuts decided to turn this into soapbox rant afternoon.

BTW, I am left-leaning as well, but for fucks sake keep your politics to yourself. It's completely off-topic yet gets modded up becuase of /. groupthink. Leave your political rants for the /. political threads.

Cmon guys don't drag this place down a notch. It's annoying to sort through at +4/5 expecting cool comments but all you get is some guys off topic political rant that fits the /. atmosphere.