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Measuring China's Cyberwar Threat
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Network World: "A lengthy report prepared for the U.S. government about China's high-tech buildup to prepare for cyberwar includes speculation about how a potential conflict with the U.S. would unfold — and how it might only take a few freelance Chinese civilian hackers working on behalf of China's People's Liberation Army to sow deadly disruptions in the U.S. military logistics supply chain. As told, if there's a conflict between the U.S. and China related to Taiwan, "Chinese offensive network operations targeting the U.S. logistics chain need not focus exclusively on U.S. assets, infrastructure or territory to create circumstances that could impede U.S. combat effectiveness," write the report's authors, Bryan Krekel, Patton Adams and George Bakos, all of whom are information security analysts with Northrop Grumman. The report, "Occupying the Information High Ground: Chinese Capabilities for Computer Network Operations and Cyber Espionage," focuses primarily on facts about China's cyberwar planning but also speculates on what might happen in any cyberwar."
Because the Chinese government has sponsored research on "attack-induced cascading power failures" related to the U.S. power grid, ...
For those of who have lived through power shut downs for days and weeks on end because of snow and hurricanes, BFD. Ooooo, I won't be able to surf the internet or watch TV or pop my microwave popcorn. Oh noes!
And for the folks that really need the power, like hospitals, they have on site generation equipment that will last as long as they can get the diesel or the natural gas flows. AND some are even putting solar on their roofs - made in China, btw.
In computers and network security, every time someone uses 'cyber' in a serious, unironic manner, they lose credibility.
TFA uses it 9 times.
Our newest 'threat' we need to throw money at to 'combat'.
Instead of ohhhh... i dont know... not connecting important shit to the internet...
What's it gonna be called.. Thats the big question. 'War on Cyber' Doesnt sound catchy enough.
This is what I would add:
All speculation is geared toward ensuring that the report's authors
or their agents are beneficiaries in any efforts the US government would take to "mitigate" any China factor(s).
Does the "cyber war" threat mention the public Internet at all? If so, then that's totally stupid!
The military has no business *relying* on the public Internet for anything!
The power grid has no business *relying* on the public Internet for anything!
Telephone companies has no business *relying* on the public Internet for anything!
If hackers using the plain Internet have any way in to any U.S. military communications system, then people need to be fired!
The Internet is NOT a secure communications network, and the government should not try to present this insecurity as a "national security" issue. The idea of turning the Internet in to a secure communications network is like trying to impose federal banking laws in the commerce system of "World Of Warcraft". The FBI and NSA are trying to justify deep surveillance, user tracking, and censorship on the Internet. It's a power grab for what should be a public network, with private communications (like most physical mail parcels).
I'm sceptical of how much damage 'cyberwar' can really do sustainably. I suspect it would be a bit like Pearl Harbor - you make enormous damage the first day with a surprise attack, but it goes downhill from there.
I mean, I'm sure that the first day a lot of computers will go offline, and even factories will stop, etc. But what happens after a month when those computers have their OS reinstalled - with Linux or a commercial UNIX, or even, zOS if need be, and the data you've deleted has been restored from backup CDs, and everywhere there are billboards on the road proclaiming that whomever isn't updating their computer is giving Hitler a drive. Would it be as easy to go on inflicting damage then?
Trust me, BOTH sides have "the talent" on all levels: But, why? It's like a street-fight really - BOTH SIDES TAKE A HELL OF A BEATING, & for what??
Some stupid rich man's steering nations into wars/conflicts (face it, we KNOW that's how real wars start up too, the wealthy/war profiteer "wanting more")).
* Almost makes me sad... the media "hyping it" doesn't help either because it gets folks gander up (regular folks that don't know any better, or have never met a person from 'the other side' personally, & get led/stirred up like 'sheeple' are wont to do).
APK
P.S.=> Personally, I know a pack of very talented Chinese guys in computing (from academia in fact & work), & they're JUST GUYS, pretty much, just like any others... They don't really want shit because they're too smart to even START that kind of mess - same on 'our side' too! Normal folks that get used/abused by "the people @ the top/1%-ers". Pretty sad... apk
Just who in their right mind connects such systems to the Internet !
AccountKiller
Has anyone in the US Military stopped to notice what critical supplies are manufactured solely in China today? I do not mean just armaments, but stuff that the US military would be utterly unable to move without. Stuff like light bulbs. Fuel filters. Glass containers.
Simple little things that the last US manufacturer closed down for either recently or as far back as 1980.
Do we still make toilet paper in the US? I suspect there may only be one factory that does and it will probably close down soon. It is much cheaper to have it made over there and shipped here.
We cannot possibly win a conflict with China - they would cut off our supply of manufactured items and the military would just grind to a halt.
Sure, they could probably shut down a couple of factories making classified munitions, but who cares? They figured out that troops don't fight without toilet paper in WW I and trust me, it hasn't gotten any better. They cut off our supply of toilet paper and the US population would storm Washington and demand an end to the conflict immediately. I am not kidding here.
Anything internet connected can get owned... even stuff that isn't connected can get killed via service equipment (which is what the whole Stuxnet thing was about).
When you run everything with ambient authority, you're never going to be safe. EVERYTHING uses ambient authority, because it's what we're all used to, as far as computers go. Here's the difference:
In the real world, we operate with ambient deny... you car key doesn't open all cars of that model, it only has the capability to open your car. When you delegate it, your valet can't open all that model of car either.
The situation with computer security now is like having each car owner contractually promise not to open any other car than their own, rather than unique keys. The first hand off to a valet who didn't sign the promise does the whole system in. It also fails if they get confused and return the wrong car.
Until the model of computer security is brought in line with reality, things will continue to be fscked, Chinese or no Chinese.
"may" employed about 100 times ( order of magnitude, I lost count ). "would" exactly 59 times, in 109 pages of text ( not counting the appendix and refs/bibliography part).
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
When watching the pilot episode of remake Battlestar Gallactica few years ago, and how Cylons were able to defeat all battlestars and fighters by shutting down all their systems with "virus software" installed in the background (was done over many years by cylon spies). Since all Colonial spacecraft and systems were networked together, this virus effected all their systems. I was thinking if we went to war with China, this is ***exactly*** what will happen. OK, we can argue China will or not want to get into a shooting war with US. Most likely US will continue to decline.
In the TV series, the Gallactica survived because ship commander Adama was an old guy from the old school who never upgraded his systems to modern networked systems. All their computers were standalone systems, much like PDP-11s. Fighters were the old models with much more analog control sytems and looks like they still used Mocom-70 for 2-way radios.
mfwright@batnet.com
Another (highly upstream) impediment to combat effectiveness is a change of attitude away from combat-based resolution. O, to have hackers so skilled, from any nation, that yang may cede to yin, at least for a few years, in our lifetimes...
(end lament)
Mod me double plus idiot if you will, but in our small company, our "critical computer" - the one hat has files I don't want to loose (yes, i do back ups), and the one I don't ever want hacked, it is NEVER connected to the internet. No wifi, no bluetooth, no cable, nada, zilcho. I even have independent power supply aside from plugging it into the wall.
Anything I need to introduce into the computer id done by a freshly formatted USB, and double checked and scanned first on a different machine running linux. When not in use, I physically turn it off and disconnect the power supply, and if the hackers can get into a machine with no power, well, I;ll just go back to pen and ink at that point. :)
Now seriously, I know you cannot turn off a computer that is running a nuke plant or a NORAD radar system, but why are so many critical systems connected to the internet? Or have online access of any kind? Back in the good old days of BBSes when I was a sysop and upgrading form a 9600 baud modem to a 28,800 like like a miracle (you know, this was back way when dinosaurs still roamed the earth, or so my kids see it as such :) ), the quickest way sometimes to block a hacker attack as to physically disconnect the phone line from the modem.
Again, mod me super simplistic idiot, but if I were operations manager for a nuke plant, and a major cyber attack was underway, to prevent a meltdown, wouldn't you be tempted to just take a pair of wire cutters and snip the physical connection to the internet?
If the US and China butt heads too much, all China has to do is cut off supply of all our shiny objects, bankrupting many large US companies and destroying what is left of our economy.
They can also demand payment for what we owe them..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Northrop Grumman, majority owned, via a number of shell companies, offshore finance centers and holding companies, by the Bush family and James Baker. And who gives a fig about China, where they offshored all the jobs, all the technology and all the investment, not to mention what's not obvious to all (but should be by this time) a considerable amount of US foreign aid (and World Bank aid) to finance the building of those PLA-owned, factories and production facilities and labs for the benefit of their elites and the multinationals who profits from them. What utter BS and nonsensical bullcrap. sgt_doom has spoken......
Viktor Suvorov, "Inside the Soviet Army"? The laugh-or-cry gallows humour in that book is absolutely brilliant. You really feel with the author. It reminded me about Solsjenitsyns unsentimental yet gripping descriptions of the gulags.
Emotions! In your brain!
Yup, that's right. Except for the fact that the Soviets had nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons with little safeguards, there was nothing all to worry about. Go peacefully amidst the noise and haste...