MSNBC Worries of a cyber war

"Politically motivated hack attacks are rising "sharply," London-based computer security firm mi2g said Tuesday, citing in particular the rise of what it called "Islamic interest hacking groups." And while political hacks account for just a fraction of all hacking activity, security experts worry that may soon change."

"October, mi2g said, has already qualified as the worst month for overt digital attacks since its records began in 1995, with an estimated 16,559 attacks carried out on systems and Web sites."

redux [09.18.02]
News.Com Government unveils cybersecurity plan

"CSIS analyst Arnaud de Borchgrave, a former editor-in-chief of the Washington Times and United Press International, warned that a "cyberattack" was just around the corner.

"It is later than we think. The next generation of transnational terrorists understands that a hand on a mouse can be more lethal than a finger on the trigger," said de Borchgrave, who co-authored a report that concluded: "Cyberattacks now arise whenever disputes occur anywhere in the world...Can cyberterrorism and cyberwar be far behind?""

redux [08.14.02]
ZDNet Is the U.S. headed for a cyberwar? I doubt it

"THE FIRST THOUGHT that comes to my mind when people mention cyberwar is: What kind of attack are they really talking about? We've seen Web page defacements traded between Palestinian and Israeli cyberactivists. The Yaha worm, thought to have originated in India, recently caused a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Pakistani government's main Web site. In the grand scheme of things, however these are relatively minor inconveniences compared with a major military ground or air attack."

"No one has ever made it clear to me exactly what a cyberwar would entail--and I'm betting I'm not the only one who's confused here. "

The Register Mock cyberwar fails to end mock civilization

"A mock cyberwar enacted by faculty of the US Naval War College and analysts from Gartner does not appear to have fulfilled the Clancyesque predictions of mass devastation envisioned by the leading security paranoiacs of the Clinton and Bush Administrations.

The exercise, named "Digital Pearl Harbor," apparently in tribute to US CyberSecurity Czar and Chief Alarmist Richard Clarke, brought together a team of experts in several areas related to critical infrastructure for a three-day hackfest."

redux [07.23.02]
The Washington Post U.S. Cyber-Security Efforts Faulted

"Years after orders from the White House to beef up the security of the nation's most important computer systems, the government is having trouble identifying which organizations should be involved and how they should be coordinated, according to a new report."

"Even organizations already involved are slowly discovering the scope of the problems from an increasingly interconnected world."

redux [10.04.01]
First Monday Networks, Netwars, and the Fight for the Future

"Netwar is an emerging mode of conflict in which the protagonists - ranging from terrorist and criminal organizations on the dark side, to militant social activists on the bright side - use network forms of organization, doctrine, strategy, and technology attuned to the information age. The practice of netwar is well ahead of theory, as both civil and uncivil society actors are increasingly engaging in this new way of fighting. We suggest how the theory of netwar may be improved by drawing on academic perspectives on networks, especially those about organizational network analysis. As for practice, strategists and policymakers in Washington and elsewhere have begun to discern the dark side of the network phenomenon - especially in the wake of the "attack on America" perpetrated apparently by Osama bin Laden's terror network. But they still have much work to do to begin harnessing the bright side, by formulating strategies that will enable state and civil-society actors to work together better."

The New York Times Securing the Lines of a Wired Nation
[requires 'free' registration]

""People aren't going to be killing us with computers," Mr. Hunker said, "but our life may be hell because of computer attacks."

The likeliest use of the technology, he said, would be to complicate matters further after a real-world attack, a tactic he describes with the military phrase "force multiplier." That could involve planting false information on the Web to create a panic or taking down crucial computers in the financial or communications sectors."

redux [08.19.01]
AsianWeek Get Ready for Cyberwars

""Taiwan has one of the world's largest computer software and hardware manufacturing bases," said D.K. Matai, managing director of the British-based Mi2. "The computer software programmers in Taiwan are world class. Our view is that getting involved in any kind of conflict with Taiwan, given the kind of intellectual capacity the country has, may prove detrimental."

The Chinese government has been quite open about its future strategic military objective. In paper appearing in the spring issue of China Military Science journal, a member of the Chinese Committee of Science, Technology and Industry of the System Engineering Institute, wrote: "We are in the midst of a new technology in which electronic information technology is the central technology. The technology provides unprecedented applications for the development of new weaponry...Military battles during the 21st century will unfold around the use of information for military and political goals.""

redux [09.06.00]
Rand Corporation In Athena's Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age

"The thesis of this think piece is that the information revolution will cause shifts both in how societies may come into conflict, and how their armed forces may wage war. We offer a distinction between what we call "netwar" -- societal-level ideational conflicts waged in part through internetted modes of communication -- and "cyberwar" at the military level. These terms are admittedly novel, and better ones may yet be devised. But for now they illuminate a useful distinction and identify the breadth of ways in which the information revolution may alter the nature of conflict short of war, as well as the context and the conduct of warfare.

While both netwar and cyberwar revolve around information and communications matters, at a deeper level they are forms of war about "knowledge" -- about who knows what, when, where, and why, and about how secure a society or military is regarding its knowledge of itself and its adversaries."

redux [01.04.01]
MSNBC Bytes without the blood in Mideast

"Scenes of street violence are played out day after day in Palestinian towns across Gaza and the West Bank. But another modern-day arena for battle between the Palestinians and the Israelis is growing ever more heated, so much so that the Internet war waged by computer-savvy political activists is being dubbed an "e-Jihad.""

redux [03.22.00]
CNN Kashmir conflict continues to escalate -- online

"A group of Pakistani hackers has used the conflict in Kashmir as a reason to deface almost 600 Web sites in India and take control of several Indian government and private computer systems, according to the group."

"Unlike the majority of Web vandals, the MOS members say they secretly take control of a server, then deface the site only when they "have no more use" for the data or the server itself.

"The servers we control range from harmless mail and Web services to 'heavy duty' government servers," says the MOS representative. "The data is only being categorically archived for later use if deemed necessary."

The Christian Science Monitor Wars of the future... today

"Take the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade several weeks ago. Rage spread across China and hackers from the mainland attacked the Web sites of the US Departments of Energy and the Interior, and the National Park Service. A subsequent attack brought down the White House Web site for three days. The attacks generated headlines across the country.

What the news media didn't report was that the US government had known for a long time that someone had been in its computer systems - they just didn't know who. Then, in a fit of anger, the Chinese hackers caused some real damage - and gave away the hidden "location" of several "backdoors" they had built in US government networks."

"The US Government Accounting Office estimates 120 groups or countries have or are developing information-warfare systems. According to a report issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 23 nations have cyber-targeted the US."