Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
It's not surprising actually.....because attacking that infrastructure is not as easy as it sounds. It's not like any script-kiddie can pick up the stuxnet script and modify it to attack their local cell-phone tower.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
In the real Pearl Harbor, people died. Unless and until the people talking about "cyberwar" demonstrate that they're defending us against the same kind of lethal threats, there isn't a legitimate comparison.
At worst, there may be property damage. But the simple fact is that the threats presented by enemies of the United States today are not even close to being the same level of threat presented by the Germans and Japanese and Russians of the past, where if we screwed up it was quite possible that the United States wouldn't exist anymore.
So why do they continue to invoke this stuff? To scare people into putting their organization on the US DoD gravy train.
I am officially gone from
They should threaten to make available copies of movies and music online for free.
Actually, depending on what kind of damage they can do to utilities and SCADA systems, people could very well die.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Nope, that's not how cyber attacks work, do you think there was an armada of servers powering stuxnet? No... it was a self-contained program that ran on Iran's resources.
This is so incredibly wrong that it's astounding to me. A whole series of declarative statements that show a total lack of knowledge, and a total lack of understanding of the background material as well. Let's count them:
"The first shot was probably the release of Stuxnet sometime during or before 2009."
No. Cyber warfare did not start with Stuxnet...and common sense bears that out. Nobody can mount a successful and incredibly complex offensive the first time they field troops on the battlefield. Chinese thought leadership on cyber warfare goes back to the early 90s, when they seized upon it as an avenue to even the odds after witnessing our performance during Desert Storm...which, quite simply, made them wet themselves with shock at how effective we were at kinetic warfare.
"Even though no one has officially claimed responsibility everyone knows who was behind it."
Um, Obama took responsibility for it. At least read the headlines of what you're talking about? He was even called out for doing so, by others.
"Stuxnet hit with a bang and did a whole lot of damage to Iran's uranium-enrichment capabilities."
AWESOME! You FINALLY said something that was factually accurate! Too bad it took three sentences to get there.
"We followed up Stuxnet with Flame — the Ebola virus of spyware."
Uh, nope. Flame/Duqu, by all assessments, was actually a predecessor to Stuxnet, and I don't get the "Ebola" reference, since it's a data stealer and not designed to brick systems.
"What did the Iranians fire back with? A series of massive, on-going and ineffective DDoS attacks on American banks."
Okay, so first off, this is not the first thing...or the only thing...the Iranians have done. They've been in the cyber business a long, long time and are viewed as one of the big three actors in offensive cyber operations. Second of all, the attacks were not at all "ineffective"; ask any Bank of America customer who uses online banking. The site was down for weeks nonstop. And the banks have gone to the NSA asking for help in fending off the attacks as well.
"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."
See again, under Iranian cyber operations and how the banks fared during the DDoS attacks. Also keep in mind that the financial industry is at the top of industry sectors, when ranked in terms of cyber security maturity.
NOW, let me add the total way in which the OP ignores anything related to Russia or China, using only his incredibly faulty understanding of one country to justify his assessment of an entire form of warfare. Forget Red October (Russia, still in play but being shut down), forget Ghost Net (China), forget Aurora (also China), right? Forget what the Russians did in Georgia and Estonia. Forget North Korean actions against South Korea. Yeah...wow, good analysis dude. I bet Fox News would love you.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
My brother works for a very large electricity plant and he says that the only computer controlled anything is the monitoring systems. The action of turing on/off turbines is manual. I know this isn't true of the whole electrical grid but I'm sure there are considerations made when hooking up computers to critical systems like those ones.
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
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
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.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Don't be naive. Right now this minute, in some top secret Iranian bunker, they are drafting elaborate plans to hit us where it will irrecoverably cripple us. They will break down the social structures upon which our civilization rests. Yes my friends, they mean to take down Facebook.
+1 Disagree
Really? Someone shuts down the power grid and the entire world grinds to a halt? Maybe we should train someone who knows how to, well, turn the power grid back on?
I understand that the grid is a complex legacy systerm that isn't well understood. It's not clear, for example, how to cold-start the nationwide power grid if some catastrophe shut it all down, nor is it clear how long it would take to do so. But assuming that the economy comes to a catastrophic halt is simply fear-mongering. Every few years, winter storms shut down the Eastern seaboard for days with no lasting effects. The World Trade Center attacks shut down most of the financial industry for a week, and had severe repercussions on it for weeks thereafter; but we survived. The Sept 11, 2001 attacks shut down air traffic completely for a week - and yet, the world didn't stop.
Taking down the electrical grid would be more comprehensively catastrophic than the Sept 11 attacks, but it would still be no more than a minor blip on the Human History chart. A week later, it would be back up and running and those cunningly flexible and adaptable human beings would still be infesting this planet.
Please, for the sake of the United States and the world, get out of government service and take your paranoia with you.
And the worms ate into his brain.
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.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Any nation-state, even a tiny African country, has enough resources to mount a massive attack. A bigger concern for the Libyans or Iranians is that the attack is too effective. The American public is usually lethargic about foreign policy, but when they get provoked into saying "do something, I don't fucking care what", that's when the US government gets to strap your ass to a waterboard without any consequences, or drop a Hellfire on you, your 4 wives, and your dog. And other countries realize that. They saw what happened with 9/11, and don't want a repeat.
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.
Do you know of any way I could get hold of these people? I would really like to assist them in achieving their goal. :)
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Traffic light and elevators come to mind ...
No way. Both traffic lights and elevators have low level hardware interlocks that prevent them from going into an unsafe mode. Even if you have access to the control systems, the most you could do is stop the elevators, or put the lights into 4-way blinking red mode. To make the lights go into something dangerous, like 4-way green, you would need to conduct physical sabotage with a crowbar and a soldering iron. It would be easier to just buy a gun and shoot people as they drive by.
There's a documentary about this you should see called "Live Free or Die Hard." It's even got the guy from the Mac commercials in it, so you know they're computer experts.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
If the "nerd" wants to push the Jews into the sea, I'm fine with being the bully. We should bully such murderous assholes more.
Don't the Iranians have a right to the opinion that Israel shouldn't be a state?
I'm not saying we have to agree with them, I'm not saying the US shouldn't help out Israel, if attacked...
But this is preemptive warfare.
Where does it end?
These hacks only postpone their nuclear program, and cause a lot of animosity...
The only option for true peace in the region is negations, all out war could stop a nuclear program, but it certainly wouldn't bring peace.