-----Original Message----- From: NIPC Watch [mailto:nipcwatch@private] Sent: Friday, August 09, 2002 6:12 AM To: IG Unsecured; IG Secured; IG Coordinators Cc: NCMS Daily Subject: [Infragard_unsecured] Daily Report 08/09/02 NIPC Daily Report 9 August 2002 The NIPC Watch and Warning Unit compiles this report to inform recipients of issues impacting the integrity and capability of the nations critical infrastructures. AT&T reassures government on IP capacity. Recently, AT&T Corp. executives told government officials there is plenty of capacity to handle the nation's IP traffic even if the UUNet backbone, one of the nation's largest carriers of Internet traffic, shuts down. AT&T executives disputed claims that UUNet carries more than 50 percent of the nation's IP traffic, saying AT&T is virtually tied with UUNet with about a 15 percent share of traffic. In the event of a shutdown, the country's eight major backbone providers would easily absorb UUNet's share, they said. AT&T's chief technology officer described the 35-40 percent increase due to a UUNet failure as no more than background noise. "The bottleneck would be at the edge of the network," he said and noted that providing local access to backbones could take months in some places in the event of a massive switchover. "We are deploying local access infrastructure all over the country, but we're not everywhere." (Government Computer News, 7 Aug) DOD, FEMA test net defenses. Representatives from all the armed services, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other organizations began exploring how compatible their communications systems would be in homeland defense situations. The 2002 Joint Users Interoperability Communications Exercise (JUICE), which began 5 August and runs through the end of the month, is using a mix of legacy and new technologies to support communications, command, and control requirements for a deployed joint task force in simulated homeland defense scenarios. In such scenarios, the Department of Defense (DoD) serves in a supporting role to FEMA and other groups, said John Caruso, chief of the DoD's Executive Agent for Theater Joint Tactical Networks. During JUICE, systems and operational approaches are being tested, including defending networks from cyberattacks. FEMA participated in JUICE for the first time last year and applied what was learned to the response to the 11 September attacks. This year FEMA is playing a larger role as part of a new collaborative initiative with the military, Caruso said. FEMA Mobile Emergency Response System detachments will participate along with civil support teams from several states. (Federal Computer Week, 6 Aug) Airlines and airports fault US on communication about threats. The federal government has made few changes to the system for alerting airlines and airports about terrorist threats. Pilots, airlines, and airport managers argue that improved security means not just catching a bomber at the airport but also anticipating his actions and disrupting them in advance, which requires having better access to information. Plans to greatly expand intelligence under the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have faded under skepticism from Congress, which has cut the agency's budget and urged it to focus on checkpoint screening. Even without an expansion, the agency needs a new infrastructure of secure communications to relay intelligence to all US airports. That system is being planned, but officials would not comment on when it would be completed. (Washington Post, 8 Aug) Nation's power grid holding up this summer despite record demand in some areas. Despite high temperatures that produced record demands on utilities in some parts of the country, the nation's electric systems have handled this summer's scorching heat waves with power to spare. In recent weeks, power companies in the Midwest and Northeast reported record demand as temperatures lingered for days in the 90s. But except for some storm-related outages, air conditioners kept working with no shortfall of power. Experts cite increased attention to conservation in California and the opening of new power plants from California and Texas to New England as key to this summer's crisis-free flow of power. (Associated Press, 8 Aug) Doubt cast on al Qaeda's cyber skills. House terrorism panel chairman Lamar Smith recently predicted there is a "50 percent" chance the next al Qaeda attack against America will involve potentially devastating Internet sabotage; however, many computer security and intelligence experts disagree. These analysts and consultants contend that scant evidence exists that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network is capable of conducting such an attack or is even much inclined to try. So far, al Qaeda has demonstrated it is a largely low-tech operation that has used the Internet and telecommunications in simple, rudimentary ways. The is a possibility that al Qaeda could ally with others who do have such capabilities, even using hired guns to do its cyber-dirty work. But, these experts say, the very nature of a cyber attack - which would occur out-of-sight without any visual impact - wouldn't suit bin Laden's main goal, which is spreading fear. (Scripps Howard News Service, 7 Aug) _______________________________________________ Infragard_unsecured mailing list Infragard_unsecured@private http://listserv.leo.gov/mailman/listinfo/infragard_unsecured
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