Monday, January 23, 2006

Cyberterrorism - recent developments

I've once blogged about why you shouldn't stereotype when it comes to Cyberterrorism, and going through the most recent and well researched report on"Terrorism Capabilities for Cyberattack : Overview and Policy Issues"I came across great similarities to what I posted. I think cyberterrorism shouldn't be just perceived as shutting down a stock exchange, or slowing it down, the irony here is that it could actually happen for "good" on a certain occasions :)

Going back to the report, it's a very recent overview of cyberterrorism, and the way it's perceived. Flawed or not I'll leave up to you to decide. What made me an impression anyway?

- CIA's 2005 "Silent Horizon" to practice defending against a simulated widespread cyberattack directed against the United States. I really don't think frontal attack are of any interest, or are they?

- Stolen credit cards were used in the terrorist attacks in Bali. There have also been other cases, of exactly the same, using cyber activities for funding real world crime and terrorism.

- How sensitive information on a future Army command and control system was stolen from an unclassified system by at least reportedly, Chinese hackers. Unclasiffied doesn't necessarily mean someone wasn't having a false sense of security on a .mil domain I guess.

- The U.S Elite Military Hacking Crew, the so called Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare (JFCCNW) I feel every military forces have or should have these.

The report also highlights that the Internet is now a prime recruiting tool for insurgents in Iraq. Insurgents have created many Arabic-language Web sites that are said to contain coded plans for new attacks. Some reportedly give advice on how to build and operate weapons, and how to pass through border checkpoints .

- Other news articles report that a younger generation of terrorists and extremists, such as those behind the July 2005 bombings in London, are learning new technical skills to help them avoid detection by law enforcement computer technology

Which is exactly what I've mentioned in my post on Cyberterrorism. I feel, communication, and coordination, besides research is the ultimate goal here.

The only thing that make made me sort of a bad impression was how the only major innovation mentioned is quantum cryptography, and steganography mentioned just twice. I think that this isn't entirely the case, and breaking cryptography doesn't necessarily have to come in form of directly attacking the algorithm itself. That happens to be impossible sometimes, but the first time when I came across the fact that the AU government can use spyware on criminals with the idea too obtain keys, or whatsoever, it makes such issues irrelevant.

On the other hand, the way the Internet provides "them" with more opportunities, the more their traceability improves, or at least give clues to a certain extend.

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