The One Sided Cyber War

Curseyoukhan writes with a skeptical perspective on the U.S. Cyberwar posturing. From the article: "The first shot was probably the release of Stuxnet sometime during or before 2009. Even though no one has officially claimed responsibility everyone knows who was behind it. Stuxnet hit with a bang and did a whole lot of damage to Iran's uranium-enrichment capabilities. We followed up Stuxnet with Flame — the Ebola virus of spyware. What did the Iranians fire back with? A series of massive, on-going and ineffective DDoS attacks on American banks. This is a disproportionate response but not in the way military experts usually mean that phrase. It's the equivalent of someone stealing your car and you throwing an ever-increasing number of eggs at his house in response. It's fascinating that Iran continues to do nothing more despite the fact that U.S. critical infrastructure currently has the defensive posture of a dog waiting for a belly rub. Keep that in mind the next time you hear that a 'cyber Pearl Harbor' is imminent."

Comments

Re:not really

[ByOhTek]

And...

If Iran did too good of a job in a counter attack, do you think the US would keep the confrontation just "cyber", or would it escalate? That's another of their considerations.

Re:The reason a "cyber Pearl Harbor" isn't imminen

[Zeromous]

Oh not you again! Does your fallacious "intelligence" position grant you highlevel access to sources such as the telegraph and wall street journal?

Look, if you've hooked up your command/control infrastructure to the Internet, all the DHS in the world is not going to save you. Stuxnet like viruses? Sure. Maybe. Unpreventable, by anything beyond quality engaged PHYSICAL security.

As for impact, if you recall, 10 years ago, power was down for up to 3 days across the NE. This was caused by something far less insidious and delibrate than a cyber attack. It's impact beyond the first grid affected was also completely mitigable and took several MANUAL command/control failures to become as pervasive as it did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003

Re:The reason a "cyber Pearl Harbor" isn't imminen

[vlm]

That's all made up scaremongering to gather $$ and enforce central authority. I work on the "other side" no, not the black hat side, I mean the infrastructure provider side. Seriously claiming that our main site backup generator which doesn't have a networked SCADA interface will magically fail? And all our POPs which have gens that barely have electronic engine computers on the diesels will be magically reprogrammed? My cousin maintains large fixed diesel gens for hospitals, you're going to reprogram his ratchet set so he can't turn bolts? Without the internet no planes fly? LOL

A grid hit would look EXACTLY like the great NYC power outage about a decade ago. In fact, seeing as no newsies really looked into it to the depth necessary, it could very well have been an external hit to send a message.

A REAL hit wouldn't look like Jericho or a survivalist fanfic, it would look like an economic hit. If every centrifugal pump VFD at the local plant instantly reversed so they get to buy new ones, that doesn't mean we're going back to worldwide feudalism, it merely means bankruptcy for one plant. Actually it would look a heck of a lot like a major aerospace jetliner manufacturer having to ground an entire worldwide fleet leading to all kinds of economic effects.

Re:The reason a "cyber Pearl Harbor" isn't imminen

[SirGarlon]

Or maybe because the professianls who do this for a living know something you don't.

Secret evidence is indistinguishable from fabricated evidence. Maybe the professionals who do this for a living are a bunch of frauds collecting fat paychecks for nothing. I have as much proof of my assertion as you have of yours.