[ISN] Intell chief: Source of cyberattacks still unknown

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:45:54 -0500 (CDT)
http://fcw.com/articles/2009/07/22/web-blair-cyberattack-responsibility.aspx

By Ben Bain
FCW.com
July 22, 2009

U.S. authorities haven’t figured out who was behind the recent 
cyberattacks that temporarily knocked some federal Web sites off-line, 
the country’s top intelligence official said today.

Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, said officials 
haven’t learned who carried out the attacks that hijacked tens of 
thousands of computers around the world. Affected computers sent out 
massive amounts of information to overwhelm systems, which shut down 
government sites in the United States and South Korea.

Blair said the government is working with partners in other nations to 
compare data to nail down who was behind the attacks that he called a 
“relatively unsophisticated botnet-type attack.”

After the attacks, initial press reports said South Korean intelligence 
authorities suspected that North Korea or its supporters were involved. 
However, security experts have said definitively identifying who is 
behind the cyberattacks might be difficult, if not impossible.

In March, Blair told reporters that improving authorities' abilities to 
attribute cyberattacks was a high priority.

[...]


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Received on Thu Jul 23 2009 - 00:45:54 PDT

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