The U.S. Prepares For Cyber War

An illustration picture shows the logo of the U.S. National Security Agency on the display of an iPhone in Berlin, June 7, 2013. REUTERS-Pawel Kopczynski

Obama Orders US To Draw Up Overseas Target List For Cyber-Attacks -- The Guardian

Exclusive: Top-secret directive steps up offensive cyber capabilities to 'advance US objectives around the world'

Barack Obama has ordered his senior national security and intelligence officials to draw up a list of potential overseas targets for US cyber-attacks, a top secret presidential directive obtained by the Guardian reveals.

The 18-page Presidential Policy Directive 20, issued in October last year but never published, states that what it calls Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO) "can offer unique and unconventional capabilities to advance US national objectives around the world with little or no warning to the adversary or target and with potential effects ranging from subtle to severely damaging".

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Update: Obama draws up plans for cyber attacks on China as he meets leader in California -- Daily Mail

My Comment: Max Fisher from the Washington Post has a good analysis on President Obama's emerging cyberwar doctrine here.

NATO Chief: NATO's Next War Will Be In Cyberspace

NATO's Next War—in Cyberspace -- Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Wall Street Journal

The Atlantic Alliance protected its members during the age of the Berlin Wall. We must be prepared to protect them during the age of the firewall.

On April 23, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 150 points within seven minutes, destroying billions of dollars in value. The reason was a message on the Associated Press's Twitter account claiming that two explosions had shaken the White House.

The tweet was quickly exposed as bogus, the result of hacking by a group identifying itself as the Syrian Electronic Army. The Dow recovered immediately. But the lesson was clear. A single tweet can cause major economic disruption.

How times have changed. During the age of the Berlin Wall, tanks and ideologies faced off across closed borders. In the age of the firewall, borders are open, ideas are free and war can be virtual—but its consequences just as devastating and real.

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My Comment: Next war ?!?!?! .... someone should tell the NATO Secretary General that you are in one already .... Nato suffered 2,500 cyber attacks in 2012.

Meet The Cyber Version Of 'Red October'

Meet Red October, The Newest Cyber Espionage Operation -- Killer Apps/Foreign Policy

Shocker! It looks like the Russians might be cyber spying on the countries that make up their former empire. IT security firm Kaspersky Lab just announced that it has found a new cyber espionage tool called Rocra.

The malware, active since 2007, targets mostly former USSR states and Eastern European countries, along with a limited number of diplomatic and government installations in Western Europe , North America and other places. It is designed to collect "geopolitical intelligence, credentials to access classified computer systems," and data from smartphones, routers, and even deleted info from removable disk drives as part of an espionage operation dubbed Red October (seriously), according to Kaspersky Lab's announcement.

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My Comment: What raised my eyebrows after reading this story is not the discovery of this new "Russian" computer virus, but that it was a Russian firm that discovered it. Clearly Russia's intellgience establishment dos not control evrything in Russia.

Nations Prepare For Cyber War

In this September 24, 2010 file photo U.S. Department of Homeland Security analysts work at the National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) located just outside Washington in Arlington, Virginia. (Reuters)

Nations Prepare For Cyber War -- CNN

Security analysts are predicting that 2013 is when nation-sponsored cyberwarfare goes mainstream -- and some think such attacks will lead to actual deaths.

In 2012, large-scale cyberattacks targeted at the Iranian government were uncovered, and in return, Iran is believed to have launched massive attacks aimed at U.S. banks and Saudi oil companies. At least 12 of the world's 15 largest military powers are currently building cyberwarfare programs, according to James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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My Comment: The public is still unconcerned about cyber war and cyber attacks .... but take one incidence where crucial data is lost and/or a financial interruption impacts millions .... that is when cyber war will become real and that is when we will see our politicians act.

Future Cyber Attacks Will Target Infrastructure

Stuxnet Is Just The Beginning: The Battlefield Is Digital, The Target Is Infrastructure -- Business Insider

When it burst upon the scene in the summer of 2010, Stuxnet changed everything in the world of cyberwarfare.

An ultra-sophisticated computer worm credited with taking down centrifuges critical to Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, Stuxnet made it impossible to ignore the possibility that other critical systems -- including America's electrical grid -- could be severely compromised by malicious software called malware, used by hackers to disrupt computer operations.

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My Comment: Infrastructure is where our vulnerabilities exist .... and where the most harm can be inflicted on us.

U.S. Cyber Weapons Revealed

We’re Slowly Starting to See U.S.’ Cyber Weapons -- Defense Tech

For years now, Defense Department officials have refused to discuss the details of the Pentagon’s offensive capabilities in the cyber arena, even as they railed against all the cyber attacks against the United States’ ever-vulnerable networks.

It seems however, that the Pentagon is happy to let actions speak for it. Earlier this spring, news reports emerged saying that it was indeed the U.S. and Israel who were behind the Stuxnet worm that famously wreaked havoc on Iran’s attempts to enrich uranium for its nuclear program. That worm was designed to make its way accross copmuter networks around the globe before infiltrating the specific type of Seimens-made SCADA computer that controlled the speeds at which Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges spun at. Once inside said computers, the infamous worm reprogrammed the centrifuges to spin at the wrong speeds where they would wreck the enrichment process.

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My Comment: And what we have seen .... I suspect .... is just the tip of the iceberg.

The Militarization Of Cyberspace

Image from IBTimes

Militarisation Of Cyberspace: How The Global Power Struggle Moved Online -- The Guardian

Rise of cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure on both sides of Atlantic calls for creation of cyberweapons and new rules for use

Jonathan Millican is a first-year university student from Harrogate in North Yorkshire. He says he doesn't think of himself as a "stereotypical geek", but having been crowned champion in Britain's Cyber Security Challenge, the 19-year-old is bound to take some stick from his undergraduate friends at Cambridge.

The competition is not well known, but it is well contested. About 4,000 people applied to take part this year, hundreds were seen by judges, and 30 were selected for the final in Bristol on 10 March.

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My Comment: The U.S. military has shown how effective 'cyberspace' can be when it is used in communications and coordinating attacks against enemy combatants. Denying this 'high-ground' has become the objective of the major powers .... hence the militarization of cyberspace.

Who Is Installing Malware In Our Electronic Devices?

A variety of foreign-manufactured hardware components. Only July 8, Greg Schaffer, acting Deputy Undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) National Protection and Programs Directorate, said he was "aware of some instances" where such items had been purposely embedded with malware. (The Epoch Times)

US Homeland Security Admits Hidden Malware In Foreign-Made Devices -- Epoch Times

Greg Schaffer, acting Deputy Undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) National Protection and Programs Directorate, testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on July 8 during a policy proposal session. Schaffer indicated that he was “aware of some instances” where foreign-manufactured software or hardware components had been purposely embedded with malware or insertions that pose a security risk.



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My Comment: No countries are mentioned .... but I suspect that the biggest offender is this one.

Is Cyberwar Unlikely?

Photo: USAF

Why Cyberwar Is Unlikely -- Live Science

In this last of a three-part series, LiveScience's sister site SecurityNewsDaily explores truths, distortions, confusions and likelihood of cyberwar. Click for Part 1: Cyberwar: Definition, Hype and Reality and Part 2: What Cyberwar Would Look Like.

Even as more and more countries invest in the idea of cyberwarfare, cyberspace remains largely peaceful insofar as actual war is concerned.

In the two decades since cyberwar first became possible, there hasn't been a single event that politicians, generals and security experts agree on as having passed the threshold for strategic cyberwar.

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My Comment: All 3 parts are an interesting read .... read it all.

Is Britain's Cyber Borders Safe?

Russia and China are known to use cyber hackers who, for a fee, will target a government of choice

How Safe Are Britain's Cyber Borders? -- The Telegraph

Chinese hackers are launching thousands of attacks on Britain every day. Is time running out to defend ourselves?

Deep beneath the palatial headquarters of the Ministry of State Security in central Beijing, a plot is being hatched – and the target is Britain.

Ranked in front of banks of computer screens in the large, fluorescent-lit offices of the Tenth Bureau, the highly secret department responsible for science and technology, thousands of cyber spies are at work. The hackers, mainly graduates in their twenties, work in eight-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as part of an unrelenting Blitzkrieg against Britain and other Western countries.

This is warfare without boundaries, and its tactics will dictate the way in which future conflicts are fought.

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My Comment: The key paragraph in this report is the following ....

“The Chinese are after every secret the UK possesses,” one senior security official told The Sunday Telegraph. “The main challenge for the Chinese at the moment is not how to steal the secrets but what to do with all the information they now possess. The Chinese have stolen so much information that it is taking them a long time to sift through it to find what is really useful to them.

It seems that we have already lost this war.

Britain And China Are In A State Of Undeclared War

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao began his tour of Europe in Hungary Photo: REUTERS

China And Britain Locked In Cyber War -- The Telegraph

As Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Premier, sips tea with the Prime Minister at Downing Street on Monday, both men will already know that their countries are in a state of undeclared war.

Although the Cold War is long over, MI5 is left tackling a constant threat from Chinese espionage.

Jonathan Evans, the director general of MI5, has singled out China for their "unreconstructed attempts" to spy on Britain saying they "continue to devote considerable time and energy trying to steal our sensitive technology on civilian and military projects and trying to obtain political and economic intelligence at our expense."

MI5 believes that the Chinese government "represents one of the most significant espionage threats to the UK."

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My Comment: Quite frankly .... cyber war is raging all over the internet, with all the major powers involved (to some degree) in infiltrating and stealing information from the computer networks and data bases of other countries.

China Prepares For Cyberwar Against The U.S.

Chinese Military Warns Of U.S. Cyberwar Threat -- CNET News

The Chinese military wants to beef up its cyberdefense efforts as it anticipates greater threats originating from the U.S.

"The U.S. military is hastening to seize the commanding military heights on the Internet, and another Internet war is being pushed to a stormy peak," the Chinese military wrote in its official newspaper, Liberation Army Daily. "Their actions remind us that to protect the nation's Internet security, we must accelerate Internet defense development and accelerate steps to make a strong Internet army."

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More News On China's Cyberwar Preparations

China military paper urges steps against U.S. cyber war threat -- Reuters
China must gear up for cyber war: Says a state newspaper -- Tech-Eye
Chinese Military Calls for Boosting Cyberwarfare Capabilities to Counter U.S. -- Newsroom America
China China China hack hack hack, Israeli version -- Beyond the Beyond
Richard Clarke: China is Planting Digital Bombs Throughout the U.S. Power Grid -- Popular Science
Time for Debate on Chinese Cyberattacks -- Max Boot, Commentary
China Fears U.S. Cyber Warfare -- FrumForum
Time for Debate on Chinese Cyberattacks -- Max Boot, Commentary
Clarke: U.S. lags in 'guerrilla cyberwar' with China -- CNET
China's Cyberassault on America -- Richard Clarke, Wall Street Journal

Cyber Warriors Are Preparing For Battle

Personnel work at the Air Force Space Command Network Operations & Security Center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado July 20, 2010. (Photo: Reuters / Rick Wilking)

The Cyber Warriors Are Preparing For Battle -- The Telegraph

As the world’s attention focuses on traditional conflicts, a new form of warfare is looming, writes Con Coughlin.

It is a lot less dangerous than planting a primitive roadside bomb in Afghanistan, or driving around the outskirts of Misurata in an ageing pick-up truck that is liable to be bombed at any moment by Nato warplanes. All that is needed to launch a highly effective cyber attack against an enemy target is a key computer password or a memory stick loaded with a highly sophisticated virus.

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My Comment: A summary on where the next battlefield will be .... from a British perspective.

Major Cyber Attacks Will Now Be Viewed As An Act Of War

Cyber Combat: Act of War -- Wall Street Journal

Pentagon Sets Stage for U.S. to Respond to Computer Sabotage With Military Force

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon has concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country can constitute an act of war, a finding that for the first time opens the door for the U.S. to respond using traditional military force.

The Pentagon's first formal cyber strategy, unclassified portions of which are expected to become public next month, represents an early attempt to grapple with a changing world in which a hacker could pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, subways or pipelines as a hostile country's military.

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More News On How The U.S. And U.K. Will Respond To A Major Cyber Attack

DoD: Cyber attack is act of war -- DoD Buzz
Pentagon: Cyber Attacks Can Qualify as Acts of War -- Newser
Pentagon says computer hack is act of war -- Tech Eye
US 'to view major cyber attacks as acts of war' -- Physorg.com

The U.K. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), above, is taking a lead role in developing cbyer-weapons programme. Photograph: Reuters

Cyber weapons 'now integral part of Britain's armoury' -- The Telegraph
UK developing cyber-weapons programme to counter cyber war threat -- The Guardian
Government plans cyber weapons programme -- The Guardian
Stuxnet attack forced Britain to rethink the cyber war -- The Guardian
Cyber weapons are integral part of the UK’s armoury, says defence minister -- Computerworld UK
Cyber warfare: Britain developing 'virtual weapons' to combat hacker threat -- Daily Mail

U.S., U.K. see cyberwar as facet of regular war -- CNET
21st century warfare -- Rick Moran, American Thinker

Israel Gets Ready For Cyberwar

Unit 8200's base in Har Avital, Golan Heights, courtesy of Marion Doss via Wikimedia Commons.

Enter Unit 8200: Israel Arms For Cyberwar -- UPI

TEL AVIV, Israel, May 11 (UPI) -- Amid mounting tensions in the Middle East, Israel's outgoing internal security chief, Yuval Diskin, says the Jewish state has been the target of attempted cyberattacks on key state infrastructure.

The attacker's identity was not disclosed, if indeed it is known. But the apparently unsuccessful attempts may have been retaliation by Iran for recent cyberattacks, blamed on Israel, on Tehran's contentious nuclear program.

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My Comment: Forgot to post this story last week ..... an Israeli news report was published two weeks ago that detailed a cyber attack against critical Israeli networks .... Shin Bet: Critical infrastructure targeted by cyber-warfare. And now .... we have this UPI report. Hmmmm .... are the Israelis telling their enemies that they are ready for them?

Computer Expert: US And Israel Behind Stuxnet Worm

US And Israel Were Behind Stuxnet Claims Researcher -- BBC

Israel and the United States created the Stuxnet worm to sabotage Iran's nuclear programme, a leading security expert has claimed.

Ralph Langner told a conference in California that the malicious software was designed to cripple systems that could help build an Iranian bomb.

Mr Langner was one of the first researchers to show how Stuxnet could take control of industrial equipment.

It is widely believed that its target was machinery used to enrich uranium.

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More News On The Stuxnet Virus

Computer expert says US behind Stuxnet worm -- AFP
Weapons of cyber mass destruction: U.S. and Israel behind Stuxnet worm attack on Iran, expert claims -- The Daily Mail
U.S. behind Stuxnet worm: computer expert. German analyst says Israel's Mossad also involved -- Vancouver Sun/AFP
Did Microsoft Conspire With the CIA to Attack an Iranian Nuclear Plant With a Computer Virus? -- Curtis Cartier, Seattle Weekly
Researcher: Stuxnet Worm Created By The U.S. -- Crunch Gear
Israel, U.S. Built Stuxnet Worm, Expert Asserts -- Global Security Newswire
US Suspected Of Producing Stuxnet -- Red Orbit
'Stuxnet Is the Hiroshima of Cyber War' -- Alexis Madrigal, The Atlantic
Could Iran Be Using Stuxnet to Confuse the West? -- Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic
Did U.S. Intelligence Mastermind The Stuxnet Cyber-Missile? -- Business Insider