[ISN] Cuba capable of waging a cyberwar

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:23:26 -0500 (CDT)
http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/other-views/story/1183690.html

By Manuel Cereijo
Miami Herald
08.13.09

During the last few weeks there have been thousands of cyber attacks on 
computers and computer networks in the U.S. government and private 
entities. The United States, because of its dependence on computers, is 
very vulnerable to such attacks.

A cyber attack on the United States could crush our country and the 
world economy, which depends on the United States as the world's leading 
economy. If they take us down, they cripple everybody. The U.S. 
government has not publicly identified where the cyber attacks are 
coming from, but Cuba has such potential.

A partially declassified CIA document released several years ago notes 
that Cuba started in 1991 to study how to interfere with computer 
networks. This project had a modest budget of $50,000. The Soviet Union 
maintained in Cuba the Lourdes electronic espionage base, to which Cuba 
did not have direct access. That base was dismantled in 2002, but there 
are others.


Upping the investment

In 1994, Cuba and Russia agreed to build a similar base in Bejucal, 
south of Havana. It became operational in December 1997 at a cost of 
$750 million. The Bejucal base shows the importance Cuba puts on 
cybernetics -- having gone from a $50,000 budget to $750 million in only 
six years.


[...]


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Received on Fri Aug 14 2009 - 02:23:26 PDT

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