[Moderator: The CIA?! Lets see, we have a failing agency that finds itself with little work to do, facing a lot of public heat... wonder what favors were cashed in to give them the work for this.] Forwarded From: Nicholas Charles Brawn <ncb05at_private> 17May98 USA: US AT MERCY OF CYBER TERRORISTS. By Matthew Campbell, Washington. PRESIDENT Bill Clinton will announce plans this week to build ramparts against a new and invisible enemy threatening to spread more chaos in America than any conventional terrorist attack. He will unveil defence measures unprecedented in the history of human conflict to protect America from the potentially devastating peril posed by cyber warfare, in which computer systems controlling airports, hospitals, traffic lights, banks and even nuclear weapons could be destroyed, creating havoc. It sounds like a science fiction fantasy. But it is already happening. This month the Pentagon reported "a series of systematic attacks" on its computer systems in an incident considered so ominous that the president was told it could be the work of Iraq's Saddam Hussein. The prospect of Saddam hiring a computer hacker to try to cripple American computer systems fills defence experts with horror: by a strange para dox, America's technological superiority and consequent dependence on computers, leave it more vulnerable than most countries to cyber attack. Britain is also at risk. Clinton will announce the creation of two government organisations to concentrate on monitoring the cyber threat and informing the public of the danger. He will also appoint a "ter rorism tsar" to co-ordinate efforts to prepare for cyber warfare. Advisers have presented him with chilling evidence about the vulnerability of America to cyber attack. A series of war games conducted by experts has revealed that the world's greatest superpower could be disabled by a handful of determined "cyber attackers" para lysing airports, markets and military systems with a few taps on a keyboard. Clinton's plan, to be unveiled in the White House on Friday, aims to make America safe from that within five years. The president will appoint Richard Clark, a State Department official, to co-ordinate the activities of various government agencies involved in counter-terrorism; he will also order the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to do more to prepare against the threat. "Because of our military strength, future enemies, whether nations, groups or individuals, may seek to harm us in non-traditional ways, including attacks within the United States," says Clinton's 18-page "presidential order", a copy of which has been obtained by The Sunday Times. "Because our economy is increasingly reliant upon cyber-supported infrastructures, non-traditional attacks on our infrastructure and information systems may be capable of significantly harming both our military power and our economy." Making things even more difficult for American defence experts is not knowing who the enemy is. Whether they are disgruntled Americans, Hamas terrorists or pariah dictators such as Saddam, the attackers could wage cyber warfare undetected on any laptop computer from the Sinai desert to Singapore. Just as exasperating for the government would be deciding how to deploy its vast military. "If you don't know who your enemy is, how can you retaliate?" said one expert. This makes cyber warfare the great equaliser, a cheap and effective weapon for any Third World rogue state or small terrorist organisation wanting to wage war against a superpower - and win. All they might need is a few million dollars to hire a handful of "cyber mercenaries" capable of penetrating supposedly secure government systems. "The Gulf war showed that you cannot fight a tank battle against America and win," said a security adviser to the president. "The threat in the future will be weapons that can be used in the manner of David's sling against Goliath: information warfare is definitely one of those." Until recently, hacking into government computer systems seemed the preserve of teenage pranksters. Now things are taking a more ominous turn. In events reminiscent of Sneakers - a Hollywood film in which a hacker played by Robert Redford steals a code-cracking device that can break into any computer in the world - the Pentagon said last week it was taking "very seriously" claims by a group calling itself Masters of Downloading that it had successfully penetrated defence department computers to steal software controlling military communications. Similar events have formed the basis of countless war games being played in Pentagon briefing rooms to simulate a cyber war crisis. One of them, called the Day After, started with communications systems going down in Texas; then the systems on the railway track between Washington and New York failed, causing a horrific crash; the air traffic control system at Los Angeles airport also failed, prompting delays and cancellations at every big American airport. The experts had to decide whether this could all be coincidence or a clear case of a concerted cyber attack. When the power went in four northeastern states, Denver's water supply dried up, the computerised records of all patients in Chicago's biggest hospital vanished from the screen and spy satellites over the Middle East were reported to be out of order, there could be no doubt what was going on. Clinton is determined to prevent such a crisis in real life. He is ordering the immediate formation within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of a group called the Infrastructure Protection Centre to warn of potential threats and gauge the vulnerability of computer systems to cyber attack. It is also charged with finding a way of fighting back in the event of an attack. Another group called the Information Sharing and Analysis Centre will be set up to liaise with the private sector. Clinton will warn the CIA, blamed last week for failing to alert the government to India's nuclear tests, to make intelligence gathering on potential cyber terrorist threats one of its top priorities. "The intelligence community shall develop and implement a plan for enhancing collection and analysis of the foreign threat to our national infrastructure," says his presidential order. The penalty for failure could be severe. "Massive networking makes the US the world's most vulnerable target," said William Studeman, former deputy director of the CIA. Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney-general, was even more blunt in her address to a Senate hearing on the subject: "We will have a cyber equivalent of Pearl Harbor." -o- Subscribe: mail majordomoat_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]
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