Operation 'Cyber Storm' Starts Tomorrow

cyberbian writes "Federal Computing Week reports that the Department of Homeland Security have moved up their rescheduled cyber security exercise, designed to test enterprise and private sector alike. The tests are expected to run from February 6-10, and are intended to gauge the state of readiness for a cyber attack on critical infrastructure. FCW also reports that the scope of the fake attacks will be global, and they are coordinating with partners in Australia, Canada and the UK."

Comments

Re:I wonder

[alexmipego]

The perfect time to hackers attack. In the middle of the "fake" attacks they can really attack and steal some data. It would be hard to spot. Are they doing this tests in a global way but to their structures only (UK and North America) or are they testing random sites all over the world?

More worrisome threats

[OpenGLFan]

I'm a lot more worried about the damage caused by the "Tiered Internet" proposals currently being bandied about. All network admins know that the damage caused by attackers is insignificant compared to the damage caused by upper management and government meddling.

Re:Wait a minute

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Not communism, but capitalist oligarchism. "Enterprise sector" is the Fortune 500 that can buy politicians to manipulate the market to their ends. "Private sector" is everyone else, competing on an increasingly tilted playing field. Hope this clears things up.

Goverments can't hack it

[hutchike]

What makes the government(s) think their fake attack will be anything like a genuine attach? For example, the UK government has a long and famous history of botching every computer initiative (e.g. UK tax credit theft via gov web site).

I doubt the Department of Homeland Security has anything like a globally distributed botnet, or permission to run DDoS like a real attacker might. The virus attack on the Russian stock market is not something goverments can replicate.

The only winners will be the companies who sell the extra bandwidth!

What about the information gathered???

[DivideX0]

Suppose their attacks allow them to get into various machines and networks, what will they do with the data that is accesible in those machines?

Is this just another end run around warrantless search and seizures of data?

What kind of oversite is there on this process and how can we be sure the information is not used, stored, or otherwise desiminated among the various US spook agencies and their foreign lackeys.

And how much do you want to bet Google will be a very well excercised target since they have been fighting the governments abuse of power already.