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U.S. Warns of Possible Cyber Biz Attack
mikesd81 writes "The AP has an article about a possible attack against the New York Stock Exchange via the internet by a radical muslim group. The notice was issued to the U.S. cybersecurity industry after officials saw a posting on a 'Jihadist Web site' calling for an attack on U.S. Internet-based stock market and banking sites in December, said Homeland Security Department spokesman Russ Knocke. Knocke has said: 'There is no information corroborating the threat and that the alert was issued as a routine matter and out of an abundance of caution.' There is no immediate threat to our homeland at this time. The attacks were to be conducted in December, 'until the infidel new year,' the site said, according to a U.S. government translation. It called for attackers to use viruses that can penetrate Internet sites and destroy data stored there. Spokespeople for the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq declined to comment on the cyber-terror threat."
seriously, is this new?
How seriously can you take would be crackers who go around blabbing about an upcoming attack?
Sheesh, and the media just have to take it up. They even contradict themselves in the same paragraph!
I can't wait to watch Dick Clark's Infifel New Year's Rockin' Eve!
-m
So, some joker on some website posts a piece about how people should release viruses to attack the stock exchange ... and our government issues an alert?
What happens when the same joker posts a call for nano-viruses to be released into our water supply to create a generation of flesh eating mutants from our own children?!?
Seriously, you deal with terrorism by NOT being afraid.
You do NOT deal with it by hyping every single fantasy that they can post.
So the banks will have a higher-than-normal amount of crack-attempts this month, and a proportionately-higher number of successful ones.
ok, so if serious breakin attempts go up 10%, and there's a small number of successful breakins every month, that's *punchpunchpunchding* a very small number of additional successful breakins.
The bottom line - your bank's web site may be a little slower to respond, and you may get a little more spam-email "from your bank" this month. Otherwise, business as usual.
Happy shopping everyone.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The news articles I have seen, read and heard all said there was "No Credible Evidence" that this was a real threat.
Save for the one slashdot finds and posts..
The best these groups could do are take down the websites of discount brokerages (E*Trade, Ameritrade, etc.), but that won't have one bit of impact on the financial markets. Even if those websites go down, the brokerages will still have their direct connections to the exchanges, so if you can call your broker, you'll still get your trade through.
I wish them the best of luck, because their attack is an exercise in futility.
Warning, that is. Don't you know we're at war! Americans aren't that good at hate, so we have to be given something to fear. Keeps the govt in business.
The largest banks, plus the stock exchange, still use a wide array of platforms. The stock exchange web site, for example, is not directly hitting the actual stock exchange servers. Most of your bank transactions still go through mainframes. A typical setup is for central transaction servers to push data files to data warehouse servers for reporting purposes. Most systems then run off of these reporting servers.
Between the variety of systems and the layers of security between each it's very unlikely that a virus could bring down the stock exchanges. Or your bank. It's far more likely that their web sites and corporate desktops would go down. The "money" in the wires is far safer.
Developers: We can use your help.
It's almost impossible that a bunch of radicalists with relatively sophomoric computer skills could infiltrate the NYSE or the Nasdaq in any substantial way. This is akin to high schoolers joking on forums and IRC that they are going to hack into the school's computers and change grades. Sure it happens, but not typically by a bunch of attention-seeking kids, but usually by some kid that is smart enough he didn't need to do it, just wanted to see "if he can".
If these "hackers" really had a chance to impact the exchanges, it means they've found a vulnerability that the exchanges don't know about. Any smart (but malicious) hacker wouldn't tip their hand to such a find, they'd wait until D-day to launch their attack. Obviously the security folks at the exchanges should take the threat seriously and evaluate their systems for holes, but it would be bordering on the ridiculous for the rest of us to be worried.
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this attack will be done from American by Americas very own joe and jane's zombie machines. Dad shoul'd have stayed away from those free pron sites when mom is in bed, now he's a terrorist helper.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Is target zombie networks and insure that Americans are deprived of Viagra ads, weight loss programs, stock tips and penis enlargements.
;)
The cost to the US could be crippling! Think what would happen if these emails ceased!
Like I said, this is the *worst* thing they could do.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's amazing how much you can do with a single post on a single website when people are afraid of the dark.
Coming up next - Homeland Security issues alert after cousin's roommate's girlfriend heard from friend that man with turban was spotted in New York.
I don't EVER remember living in the "homeland" until the Bushista regime seized power. I still like to call this America myself. Former land of the free and brave. Now home of the politically blind and cowardly.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I like that term. It's like living in Soviet Russia.
It makes me feel all warm and paranoid inside.
I really think the icing on the cake recently was Gingrich telling a group of Free Speech Advocates that free speech needs to be less free because ass-hat terrorists are getting on the net and collaborating. I mean, really, restricting internet access will certainly solve the problem.......sheesh...What an ignorant ass...
I think his point was that what they reported was not going to be able to effect the market in any negative way, so reporting this as anything other than an assinine idea brought up by some guy writing on a website is just exaggerating.
I thought this was an appropriate quote from V for Vendetta, "I want this country to realize that we stand on the edge of oblivion. I want everyone to remember *why* they need us!"
Has it occured to anyone that whoever made this threat is a terrorist equivalent of a pointy-headed-boss/marketing exec who is exhorting unknown terrorist hacker-types to unleash one of those virus thingies that he's heard about? Like, they sat in a meeting in some coffee house and said "Yeah! We could release one of those virus thingies! We'd rule the world! Get one of those computer infidels on the internets!"
Isn't this the equivalent of a pathetic "release the hounds," only there are no hounds, and the "leadership" doesn't know that?
Oh, and to religious extremists, isn't technology part of the global, modernistic infidelity?
I mean, really. After 50 years of being immersed in computing, STILL NO NON-TECHNICAL PEOPLE UNDERSTAND HOW COMPUTERS WORK and yet they STILL TELL geeks to do the IMPOSSIBLE.
What's next? A Koran that can fly and spits dates?
I, for one, am sick and tired of our moron overlords.
At risk of violating some sort of Godwin's-Law like rule for making 9/11 analogies, doesn't what you're saying sound a bit like someone sitting around on Sept. 10, 2001 saying "With a little bit of thought, the terrorists could set off car bombs in front of a bunch of major airports and totally screw up air travel? Since they cannot accomplish even that minor task, they don't have the skills to accomplish a major attack."
I think you're leaving out a major psychological motivator: the terrorists in large part aren't satisfied by and don't want just small, anonymous, disruptive attacks; they want large, public, anything-but-anonymous disruptive attacks.
Messing around with spreadsheet numbers would probably seem like a computer glitch. While its effects might actually be more crippling to the United States economy than taking out the NYSE for an afternoon (just like there are a lot of other physical-terrorism scenarios that would have been even more disruptive to the U.S. than destroying the WTC), that doesn't mean that they're as attractive to a potential terrorist.
I'm not sure if a lack of small-scale attacks really indicates that the enemy is incapable of larger ones; I think that's a terribly dangerous assumption to make. All the lack of smaller attacks means is that we have no idea what their capabilities are, and need to protect ourselves on all fronts.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."