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US Suspects Iran Was Behind a Wave of Cyberattacks
SternisheFan writes in with this Times article about more trouble brewing between the U.S. and Iran. "American intelligence officials are increasingly convinced that Iran was the origin of a serious wave of network attacks that crippled computers across the Saudi oil industry and breached financial institutions in the United States, episodes that contributed to a warning last week from Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta that the United States was at risk of a 'cyber-Pearl Harbor.' After Mr. Panetta's remarks on Thursday night, American officials described an emerging shadow war of attacks and counterattacks already under way between the United States and Iran in cyberspace. Among American officials, suspicion has focused on the 'cybercorps' that Iran's military created in 2011 — partly in response to American and Israeli cyberattacks on the Iranian nuclear enrichment plant at Natanz — though there is no hard evidence that the attacks were sanctioned by the Iranian government. The attacks emanating from Iran have inflicted only modest damage. Iran's cyberwarfare capabilities are considerably weaker than those in China and Russia, which intelligence officials believe are the sources of a significant number of probes, thefts of intellectual property and attacks on American companies and government agencies."
The Golden Rule: One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.
Stuxnet - It's called blow back. USA and Israel attack a country through software and then get pissed when that country retaliates.
"Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta that the United States was at risk of a "cyber-Pearl Harbor." "
Durring Pearl Harbor, we were unprovakably attacked.
It looks we already attacked Iran with cyber weapons and this is retaliation.
This might be a problem if the US wasn't doing it in return.
If you are actively trying to sabotage someone else's infrastructure, you have to expect them to do it back.
I'd put money on who started it.
I have no sympathy for the US in this regard..
And they have weapons of mass destruction just like Iraq
'We would be much better served if we accepted that prevention eventually fails, so we need detection, response, and containment for the incidents that will occur.
Really? Isn't that why DARPA created the internet in the first place, so our communication and command and control systems could survive a nuclear attack that we failed to prevent?
So I guess we already DO accept the notion that prevention is going to fail and the worst possible thing may happen sooner or later.
So what they're saying is we need to re-internetize the internet. In this I think they're probably right. To a degree we've de-interneted the internet by building inter-dependent applications which focused a lot on their utility to civil society and not what assholes could do with them.
How hard can it be to integrate this into the smart grid? We have the a large part of the infrastructure. We have robust packet switched networks. This is doable and should be done.
This is fundamentally the problem of modern society; it's what brought down the Twin Towers . We make something like a plane and never see it as a guided missile filled with explosive jet fuel. We build huge skyscrapers piling people on top of people and don't permit ourselves to think too much that this same arrangement of people represents a force multiplier to a determined enemy. Just an easy example from recent history; other possibilities abound.The more technologically advanced we become the more highly leveraged weapons we accidentally deliver into the hands of religionists and other madmen.
There has to be a paradigm shift in ALL our thinking about the things, the structures of civil society upon which we depend, and not just in the thinking in intelligence circles because we need to vote "yes", even "hell yes" for the taxes which pay to make these things not just work, but secure.
We are less secure today not because anyone is asleep at the switch or less concerned with security, but because we are not keeping up with ourselves technologically, in a certain sense.
However, each side believes their national infrastructure was sabotaged, and that they sabotaged the others weapons program.
Both suffer from their respective militaries being infused into their very fabric, thus valid targets are practically moot.
If there was ever a "cyber-Pearl Harbor", then Iran was Hawai, and USA were playing the role of Japan. Stuxnet was the first strike, you know...
Cyber war is like the war on drugs. Like the war on terror. Like all of the other 'wars' that are not wars at all. If this is Iran's idea of war then I say bring it on. It was idiotic of us to start this shit in the first place. When someone in Iran wants to buy something they go to a store. Disabling their internets would just slightly invonvenience them. For us it would be more than just a slight inconvenience. It would be a serious inconvenience.
If the new idea of "war" is not to kill anyone, but instead to just disable some web sites well that's a new world order that I can back enthusiastically. Maybe the world will be civilized enough some day to fight wars completely in cyber-space through special video games approved by both sides.
The idea of a cyber Pearl Harbor is one of the most idiotic things I've heard in a while. What these idiots don't seem to understand is that 'information super highway' is just a figure of speech. There is no actual highway or anything.
"We won't succeed in preventing a cyber attack through improved defenses alone," Mr. Panetta said. "If we detect an imminent threat of attack that will cause significant, physical destruction in the United States or kill American citizens, we need to have the option to take action against those who would attack us to defend this nation when directed by the president. For these kinds of scenarios, the department has developed that capability to conduct effective operations to counter threats to our national interests in cyberspace."
This statement is so clearly insane that I don't even know what to say in response except it's not the Iranians that scare me. It's my own fucking idiotic shit-for-brains government. I can just imagine these violent idiots starting a war based on some random Iranian dude taking down some e-commerce sites. Ooh, Americans are not able to complete their Amazon orders for a few hours. Boohoo. Let's go to war.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
How perceptive. Now observe as I do the same.
I'm glad this article came up on Slashdot cause Lord knows Facebook is tired of my political commentary, and in the middle of the night too so maybe somebody will actually see my comment, and understand when I say this accusation IS COMPLETE HORSESHIT.
Iran did not launch any fucking "cyber attack." This is nothing more than a convenient excuse drummed up by the U.S. to help justify an invasion. They have been searching high and low for a good excuse for some time. Now the stage is set. When some massive cyberattack hits the U.S. (not really causing any real damage of course, at least not to anything seriously critically important) guess who will be blamed? Why, it must have been Iran! Leon Panetta with his far-rearching vision and insight pointed out not 6 months ago this might happen! Quick, to arms!
but what i can not tolerate is the death defying leap into stupidity represented by people who believe iran is after only nuclear power and not after nuclear weapons
Well, every country can benefit from nuclear power. Most also don't want to be dependent on another country to keep fuel in those reactors, either. Especially when the countries that they'd be depending on have a long history of military aggression and refuse to participate in the Geneva Conventions, and have withdrawn from dozens of international treaties, while demanding other countries turn over their own citizens, who will upon deportation face indefinite imprisonment ahead of a mock trial, if one is even given. The people who currently control nuclear fuel simply can't be trusted not to leverage that access for their own political ends.
And nuclear weapons are attractive for a great number of reasons, not the least of which is, once you're a nuclear power, the aforementioned countries can't bully you around anymore. Iran probably wouldn't be developing a nuclear weapons program with such furvor if it wasn't under constant threat of attack... and whose enemies on all of its borders were receiving large shipments of state of the art weapons from other nuclear powers.
Do I think Iran should have nuclear weapons? Hell no. But do I understand why they want them? Absolutely. The United States' chief diplomat right now is a Predator drone in the region. You can't blame them for wanting to defend themselves -- and given the prohibitively-high cost of developing a military capable of providing adequate defense against its enemies, a nuclear weapons program is the only logical choice.
Whatever I may think of their ideology, religious beliefs, etc., as a country, I can step away from that and recognize that they are a sovereign nation with clear and present threats to its continued existance and way of life. If we were really the humanitarians we tell our children we are in school, we'd spend less time hitting them with the stick and more offering them the carrot. Iran's nuclear weapons program is ambitious and costly, especially for the citizens who's quality of life is already marginal. The only reason a country in such a situation would put forth the resources to fund a nuclear weapons program is out of desperation. They're scared... and they have good reason to be.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
"American intelligence officials are increasingly convinced that Iran was the origin of a serious wave of network attacks that crippled computers across the Saudi oil industry and breached financial institutions in the United States"
Assuming such attacks took place then it would have consisted of phishing attacks against unsecured Windows desktops and there's no evidence it came from Iran. It isn't beyond the bounds of probability that US intelligence fakes cyber-attacks and then blamed Iran.
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