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

good job

[joe 155]

I'm glad that they are doing something like this, in the UK people have been estimating that "in the city" only around 50% of companies are anything like prepaired for an attack of this nature, hopefully this will show people what needs to be done...

I hope no real attacks take place during this time though...

So....

[interiot]

So all you need to do is find one unlucky zombie on a government IP, and use it to break in to random computers, and people will assume you're a good guy?

Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time i saw something like this, our 'organizataion' was tested.

They caused more damage to us with childhood tactics ( like locking out system accounts ) than doing 'real' tests. We were screwed for a week trying to undo damage, and trying to figure out how it was happening again and again.

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.

Re:More worrisome threats

[ScentCone]

All network admins know that the damage caused by attackers is insignificant compared to the damage caused by upper management and government meddling.

All admins do not necessarily agree with this. Most of messes I have to clean up are from malware, fraud, "traditional" crime (and attempts at such) that have taken on a 'net communications component, and the usual tsunami of noise and bot blather that lands on every public-facing port I have open.

Tiered internet? That's a misnomer, I think. Big internet users pay for the bandwidth they (or their visitors) use. More traffic means higher costs. I don't care if some Comcast user has already paid for "his" bandwidth... serving up a streaming video to him isn't only using his bandwidth. I don't know where people get that idea. But regardless, if SBC or Verizon or any other carrier wants to screw with per-site or per-visitor metering or biasing, they're welcome to. Other ISPs will just set a price that's easier to predict and work with, and win the business away from the people trying to make it more complicated. But how much time do I have to give "upper management" or "government meddling" vs. attempted attacks, fraud killing, malware, etc? It's not even close. The bad guys are much more of an issue.