[iwar] [fc:US.fears.al-Qaida.hackers.will.hit.vital.computer.networks]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-06-29 10:45:12

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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 10:45:12 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:US.fears.al-Qaida.hackers.will.hit.vital.computer.networks]
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US fears al-Qaida hackers will hit vital computer networks
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4450242,00.html">http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4450242,00.html>

Julian Borger in Washington Guardian

Friday June 28, 2002

The al-Qaida terrorist network has been making preparations for
potentially devastating attacks on America by hacking into computer
networks to look for ways to disrupt electricity and telephone systems,
dams and nuclear power stations, it was claimed yesterday.

Government officials said the terrorist group appeared to be far more
sophisticated than initially thought in its use of the internet as a
weapon to disrupt America's web-based economy and cause potentially
catastrophic physical damage by opening dam floodgates or blacking out
air traffic control systems.

US investigators tracing the footprints of al-Qaida members on the
internet told yesterday's Washington Post that they have spent time on
sites that not only provide hacking tips but offer software that helps
users access supposedly secure networks and take over control of
specialised digital switches used for remote control of public
utilities.

After September 11, US cyber-warfare experts also found that users on
Saudi, Indonesian and Pakistani servers had been studying US computer
systems governing emergency phone systems, power stations, dams,
reservoirs, water pipelines, nuclear power plants and gas storage
facilities.

"We were underestimating the amount of attention [al-Qaida was] paying
to the internet," Roger Cressey, the chief of staff of the White House
critical infrastructure protection board, told the Post.

"Al-Qaida spent more time mapping our vulnerabilities in cyberspace than
we previously thought. The question is a question of when, not if."

A computer found by American forces in one of al-Qaida's Kabul offices
contained a virtual model of a dam, based on engineering software which
allows the programmer to simulate a catastrophic breach.

There was also software which could predict the course of floodwaters if
a dam collapsed. Government officials did not say whether the al-Qaida
programmers appeared to have a specific dam in mind.

Dams have already been shown to be vulnerable to cyber attack. In 1998,
a 12-year-old hacked into the computer system of the huge Roosevelt Dam
on the Salt River in Arizona, apparently unaware that he could have
opened the dam's floodgates. Any resulting flood would have swept
through the cities of Mesa and Tempe, with a combined population of
nearly a million, and threatened Phoenix.

The defence of the country's civil internet networks is the task of the
FBI's national infrastructure protection centre, set up in 1998. The
Pentagon's cyber-defences are controlled by its space command, which
established a computer network defence joint taskforce four years ago.
The principal threats then were seen as China and Russia.

But a CIA directorate of intelligence memorandum issued in February
identified al-Qaida as a significant cyber-threat, saying that Osama bin
Laden's organisation had shown "far more interest" in cyber-terrorism
than previously thought.

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