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Largest Simulated Cyber Attack To Date
Orome1 noted that the government will be running
simulated cyber attacks as part of the Department of Homeland Security's Cyber Storm III exercise. It says "The exercise will be controlled from the Secret Service headquarters, where organizers from various agencies will be sending out 'exercise injects,' information that a player will receive that indicates that a certain event has taken place as part of the narrative set up by the organizers. This goes a bit beyond a paper narrative, including fake log data, drives that may contain fake malware, and fake event history, and is dynamic, meaning that it can change dependent on the actions the players take." ...which makes me wonder how effective this test would actually be.
The only winning move is not to play. Now get me a WOPR with cheese!
Living With a Nerd
Should we expect a real attack at the same time?
I hope they're not just testing over the wire attacks, that new janitor with the thumb drive could do some damage...
are they playing in their mom's basement?
I wonder if a real attacker could subvert this simulation to hide a real attack. The "exercise injects" canals seems like a good way to inject malicious payload.
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
Can anyone think of a good time to run a real cyber attack against DHS?
I can guess the results in advance of this pointless "test".
We did well enough that none of us should be fired. Or we selected a fall guy months ago whom is not playing along, and I guess with "great shock" at the result its time for him to "spend more time with his family".
We did poorly enough that we all need more money. Conveniently I happen to have a brother-in-law in sales at a contractor that provides a magic bullet that claims to do everything we need...
There has never been a public "test" like this with any other result. Therefore its not even "news".
I have participated in things like this (not in this situation or field) and the primary reason they occur is someone wants to send cash to a buddy at a contractor, and everyone else wants a day off eating catered food and enjoying some business travel.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I'm going to go ahead and preempt all the non USians here...
What government is "The Government"? Eh? The government of Moldova? Argentina? Kajikisitkishtanz? Tatooine?
Why do you Imperialists pigs thing that only US people visit this site? How do you know that the government of Romulus doesn't have it's own Department of Homeland Security?
Ok, sorry, had to get that out.
Disclaimer, I'm not in the US. I live in Dixie.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
"This goes a bit beyond a paper narrative, including fake log data, drives that may contain fake malware, and fake event history, and is dynamic, meaning that it can change dependent on the actions the players take." which makes me wonder how effective this test would actually be."
Why shouldn't the test adapt to moves the player's make, do you think a hacker is going to keep running off the same script when he knows he's been noticed?
Some of the worst botnets move their Command and controls nodes around and the people behind them release new code to adapt to what security researchers are doing to stop them. Including DoSing the researchers.
What idiot thinks we can fight a changing landscape of threats with a static defense?
No Really I can't tell from the context if that's Taco or the submitter, but paper narrative tests that the author mentions basically are just there to make sure you know your job or have memorized your DR plan, but they don't make you think.
I'd be more worried if all facets of the scenario didn't get played out because nobody said "I image the hard drive" and so they skip that part of the test. In that case it would be up to the folks running the exercise to move the scenario along by saying someone at another agency imaged the drive, here is a copy, maybe you should look at it.
It's a lot like preparing for a D&D game and having the players ignore half the story/encounters you wrote up.
I don't get it really, what exactly is considered a cyber attack from the government's point of view? A DDoS at some sensitive service? And why would this sensitive service be accessible to the public internet anyway? Of course someone could compromise a workstation inside the network and stage his attacks from there, but then you should be really worried for other stuff (password policies, web filtering, firewalls etc). This sounds like another scare-tactic to gradually make people feel that the internet needs control. http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/27/1221213/Obama-Wants-Broader-Internet-Wiretap-Authority
Facebook is down.
Twitter is slowing down.
Glenn Beck is entertainer supreme.
Yours In Ft. Lauderdale,
K. Trout
Rather than wasting money on "exercises" why not provide tools to help the entire industry find and fix software problems? Make tools like the stanford checker or something like it free in the interests of "national security".
"Exercises" make for good political headlines and as awesome as hackers was there really is no "cookie" command to make the evil cookie monster go away. There is no point in putting on a nice show by holding an exercise in linear time because in "cyberwar" the damage could have been done years ago in the form of a time bomb where any human "reaction" is already too little too late.
The original article is not quite right. The U.S. Department of Homeland security is sponsoring Cyber Storm. The United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the UK are participating. The focus is on response procedures for a significant event.
11 september 2001, on the exact time of the planes flying into twintowers, NORAD held a test. On the metro bombings in London on July 7th in 2005, emergency held a test on the exact moment of the bombings.
What kind of "terrorrist attack" is happening as we speak?
if(player.win())
{
player.loseAnyway();
scaryPressRelease(REALLY_SCARY);
Legislation* cyberRegulation = new Legislation;
cyberRegulation->ramThroughCongress();
Bureau bigBrother = cyberRegulation->biggerGovernment()
}
Sorry to burst everyone's bubble, but I just simulated an attack of far greater proportions. First, I simulated having the resources to simulate an attack of far greater proportions, then I simulated executing my far greater attack. If anyone is interested, the results showed that while I was adequately prepared to defend against a simulation, I need to beef up some protocols and institute some new processes.
-- Religion is not an exact science
Lamest game of DND EVER .
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The World's Largest Simulated Cyber Attack is really growing up.
Don't do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.
Hmmm.... So exactly when does this stop being a simulation? :P
Geekism is your _only_ God!
Taking a dev or similar production network and actually hiring the same people that would likely be used to attack your equipment to attack your honey pot and see what they actually do? I dunno i'm probably just being ignorant
Am I the only one hoping that Obama exercises his "internet kill switch" option?
What happens then?
"Good job Mr. President. Now our game is over. Way to ruin it for EVERYONE!"
Hope they don't create a self-aware SkyNet
Remember, 911 happened during "excercises" too. To protect the USA from hijacked aircraft being used as tr-weapons.
Cyber-911 ? Anyone? Hello ( Is this thing on? ). Hello?