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Officials Warn: Cyber War On the US Has Begun
snydeq writes "Security pros and government officials warn of a possible cyber 9/11 involving banks, utilities, other companies, or the Internet, InfoWorld reports. 'A cyber war has been brewing for at least the past year, and although you might view this battle as governments going head to head in a shadow fight, security experts say the battleground is shifting from government entities to the private sector, to civilian targets that provide many essential services to U.S. citizens. The cyber war has seen various attacks around the world, with incidents such as Stuxnet, Flame, and Red October garnering attention. Some attacks have been against government systems, but increasingly likely to attack civilian entities. U.S. banks and utilities have already been hit.'"
Really? So we're going to see buildings destroyed, thousands murdered? The hyperbole is way out of hand on this one.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
After all, what with fiscal responsibility looming, we need all the excuses we can get to keep the war funds flowing.
If even somewhat true, this is the kind of thing that will usher in a new era of network surveillance and the kind of restrictions that will kill a formerly free Internet. Governments will have much more incentive to get involved in the standards drafting process in order to ensure "proper adherence" to national security "requests" etc.
I hope I'm wrong, but having seen how people go apeshit with simple "point and click" technologies like guns.......let's see what happens when you get a bunch of old white guys with power trying to lock down things they *truly* don't understand.
This cyberwarfare has been going on for more than five years now. Do you know how many banks, medical facilities, etc. as well as research institutions have been hit by the Chinese? I won't say whom, but a major US aerospace research corporation has been undergoing an almost constant stream of attacks since 2005...
So has my ssh server. Except that has been going on for much longer.
And when I turn on logging in iptables I see a constant patter of attempts on common windows networking ports as well.
Is this is what constitutes an "attack" in these reports?
My guess is that with public news articles coming out daily and homeland security trying to convince every
little public utility of grave danger and stampede them to harden their system, that these script kiddie attempts, which are
almost universally unsuccessful, are exactly what is being touted as a cyber warfare attack.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
They are mentioning StuxNet and the like as a threat example? So, the US is in danger of malware created by the US ... perhaps loosing viral code on the world wasn't a good idea.
Now, to "protect" ourselves from our government we need to do what ... turn over more information and control to the people that created the problem? Why would I want to give more power to people that have already proven they can't be trusted with it?
This sounds like nothing more than multi-faceted spin control and manipulation.
What I hear being said:
Look, we need a larger budget to monitor this situation.
And more power to get the information we need without the red tape of actually getting warrants.
For your protection against what we've done, you should just give us all your info, all the time.
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
I'm a security professional. I work for one of the largest banks in the world, in a role directly involving online security.
Putting it succinctly, Infoworld is full of shit.
Yes, there have been attacks. There were also attacks last year. And the year before. And pretty much every year going back to the day somebody first connected a modem to the serial port of a computer with access to the bank's internal network. I have no doubt whatsoever there will be attacks this year, next year, and every year to come.
This is NOT "Cyber 9-11". Not even fucking CLOSE to it. People fucking DIED on 9-11, including two guys I was friends with in college and used to drink, play videogames, and trade warez with all the time. I think one of them might have even jumped, and had to spend ~40 terrifying seconds deciding whether he'd prefer to be killed instantly, or live an extra millisecond or two in searing pain after getting shredded by the steel and glass atrium feet first.
It sucks having to tell your boss that there's a distributed denial of service attack in progress, or someone might have compromised an application and harvested usernames or email addresses (but as of yet, no passwords). It doesn't even come CLOSE to sucking as badly as falling a thousand feet to your death, or getting liquefied and burned alive by 400 million tons of flaming concrete.
Picture sitting at your desk, sipping a latte, checking out the morning's posts on Slashdot, and having a 767 crash into your office at 500mph. A chunk of wing hurls across the floor, tears off your legs, and sends you flying into a column or something solid. You have about a quarter of a second to think, "WTF" before getting engulfed in a fireball and dying more slowly than you'd have otherwise rationally preferred. Now, in that context, try to think of ANY conceivable computer hacking attempt or attack that either keeps people from accessing their accounts or creates fraudulent line items for the forensic bookkeeping team to try and sort out that you'd EVER classify as being worthy of being used in the same sentence as "9-11". Go ahead, I *dare* you.