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US Prepares for Eventual Cyberwar
The New York Times is reporting on preparations in the works by the US government to prep for a 'cyberwar'. Precautionary measures are being taken to guard against concerted attacks by politically-minded (or well-paid) hackers looking to cause havoc. Though they outline scenarios where mass damage is the desired outcome (such as remotely opening a dam's gates to flood cities), most expect such conflicts to be more subtle. Parts of the internet, for example, may be unreachable or unreliable for certain countries. Regardless, the article suggests we've already seen our first low-level cyberwar in Estonia: "The cyberattacks in Estonia were apparently sparked by tensions over the country's plan to remove Soviet-era war memorials. Estonian officials initially blamed Russia for the attacks, suggesting that its state-run computer networks blocked online access to banks and government offices. The Kremlin denied the accusations. And Estonian officials ultimately accepted the idea that perhaps this attack was the work of tech-savvy activists, or 'hactivists,' who have been mounting similar attacks against just about everyone for several years."
I mean who the FUCK would be stupid enough to have the controls for a Dam connected to the internet?
don't connect the dam floodgate controller to the internet ?
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Why is it that america is always preparing for a war? a war on 'terrer', a cyberwar, a war on drugs, a war on immigrants, a war on pirates, a war on guns. When is the last time america made peace?
I guess big budgets need big reasons
funny pics
How does it feel to reply to your own post?
Makes me feel Slashdot had an edit post button, so I wouldn't have to ammend myself in an entire new post.
Every US "Cybersecurity Czar" has quit in disgust. The Homeland Security agency can't even find someone to run the office, because it's a total joke.
Meanwhile, the US has already been under siege by China in a full-blown cyberwar for several years.
It's cheap to attack the US tech infrastructure, and expensive to defend against it. That's what asymmetric warfare, like terrorism, is all about. So 6 years into Bush's Terror War, and the government is still preparing to get started, while our enemies just surge around us.
--
make install -not war
Just fix the darn protocols, dammit. It's been a year since Blue Security was taken down by PharmaMaster and NOBODY has done ANYTHING to prevent any subsequent DNS amplification attacks from happening.
If ISPs at least blocked forged-ip packets from exiting them, then THAT would be a nice start.
OP is right, and he's optimistic about our defenses. Even the military practices "network security" at only a childish level. Most users have no clue how security works, and our military's network security training is horribly remiss.
And of course, the OP only outlined a few attacks that can be conducted from the safety of an office somewhere remotely. We face an enemy who isn't at all afraid to blow stuff up, even if it means the explosives are personally delivered. Anyone take a look at the physical security on a dam recently? Storage sites for nuclear waste? Ferries, busses, trains?
We are ripe for attack from a small team of well-funded and determined enemies, and we're not doing enough to prepare for it.