[iwar] [fc:Former-U.S.-Official:-Prepare-for-'Electronic-Pearl-Harbor']

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-09-13 13:27:59


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Subject: [iwar] [fc:Former-U.S.-Official:-Prepare-for-'Electronic-Pearl-Harbor']
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Former U.S. Official: Prepare for 'Electronic Pearl Harbor'

By Robyn Weisman, www.NewsFactor.com, 9/13/2001
<a href="http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nf/20010912/tc/13479_1.html">http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nf/20010912/tc/13479_1.html>

In the wake of Tuesday's devastating terrorist attacks against the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites), experts are debating
not only whether these attacks will continue, but also whether they will
spill over into cyberspace.

Administrators associated with the FBI (news - web sites)'s National
Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) and with CERT's (Computer
Emergency Response Team) Coordination Center have so far not found
evidence that any cyber attacks were coordinated with the physical
attacks on the U.S. Tuesday.

But Marv Langston, former deputy CIO for the Department of Defense (news
- web sites) (DoD), told news publications that the United States needs
to prepare itself for "an electronic Pearl Harbor."

NIPC officials convened for an emergency meeting to analyze any strands
of intelligence that might have some connection with the attacks.

Nothing Out of the Ordinary

Ryan Russell, incident analyst for SecurityFocus.com, the Internet
security firm that first discovered and wrote up the Code Red II virus,
told NewsFactor Network that his group has yet to see anything out of
the ordinary over the last 24 hours.

"We have been watching for any unusual attack patterns very carefully,"
Russell told NewsFactor. "We haven't detected any major denial of
service attacks, no new worms or viruses, nothing of that sort yet."

Frank Prince, an analyst with Forrester Research, told NewsFactor that
the terrorist attacks on the U.S. are, for now, not an Internet story.

There was no apparent Internet-related component to the attack, Prince
said. "The Internet itself was resilient in the face of the upsurge of
usage that occurred," he added.

Cyber World Not Sleeping

Russell did say that SecurityFocus would continue to monitor activities
at the request of the U.S. government. He added that the agencies in
charge of watching for cyber attacks are on alert as well.

Ben Venzke, CEO of IntelCenter, noted in an e-mail that "cyber-based
actors are calling for cyber attacks against Arab nation state networks
and terrorist computer networks." He added that we should "expect Arab
hackers to retaliate if attacks materialize."

Michael Rasmussen, a senior industry analyst for enterprise security
with Giga Information Group, sent NewsFactor a "cautionary" brief about
the potential cyber-crisis.

In the brief, Rasmussen wrote that while "we are not aware of any
hostile activities directed at the Internet and information structures
of the United States, there will undoubtedly be a cyber component to
[Tuesday's] events in some form or another."

Recent Examples, Future Fears

Rasmussen cited the recent cyberwar between Chinese and U.S. hackers as
an example, adding that "organizations were a target just for being
associated with the opposing country," and that the targets were not
exclusively military.

"Just because attention [has been] diverted to the physical world does
not mean the cyberworld is sleeping," said Rasmussen. "There may very
well be cyber attacks underway, or planned in the near future, as a
result of today's events."

Analyst Russell told NewsFactor that as disruptive as Internet attacks
can be to critical infrastructure, Tuesday's events demonstrate that
attacks in the physical world are still a lot more devastating that
those in cyberspace -- so far.

Said Russell: "I'm not looking forward to the day when medical or
building control devices are connected to the Internet to the point
where lives can be ended with software."

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