A Moment of Paranoia

[steve.milner]

Okay, lets suppose that I'm Osama\Saddam et al.

What's my purpose in life - To cripple the American Infidels etc

I had a good go on 9/11 but that just made 'em pissed - must come up with a better plan.

Cripple their economy & ability to retaliate & then kill loads of innocent people.

How am I going to cripple the economy.

I would start by hitting an easily targeted resource remotely


So I wonder, are the levels of worms/trojans & virii we're seeing out there going to keep going until the net grinds to a halt?

And then what?

Perhaps all this is a distraction so we've taken our eye off the ball in other areas.


Opinions anyone?

[Ennis]

Well in Ireland the CIRA or RIRA (so many variants) have been actively recruiting, among their recruits is believed to be many cyberterrorists. A new method perhaps of hitting commercial and government targets i.e. bringing down their business on the net for a while is perhaps something we may see more of.

However it is a different kind of terrorist we are talking about, Northen Ireland is hardly the caves of Afghanisthan.

Just thought I'd throw that in as I read about it recently.

[steve.milner]

Yeah, I'm suprised we don't hear more about it.

I was out the office on 9/11 but as soon as plane #2 hit I realised it wasn't an accident I called into work & asked the dept to make sure that all virus updates were up to the minute.

If I was mad enough to be organising terrorism I would be combining things to maximum effect.

Nice to see you're still around.

[r8devil]

I guess terrorist havent realised the problem that virii and worms will cause. Also I think the impact is not as great as a bomb going off.

Imagine the news:

Al Qaeda virus strikes

or

Bomb kills 10 in ........

Which one do u think will be the main story that night

[steve.milner]

Originally posted here by r8devil
I guess terrorist havent realised the problem that virii and worms will cause. Also I think the impact is not as great as a bomb going off.

Imagine the news:

Al Qaeda virus strikes

or

Bomb kills 10 in ........

Which one do u think will be the main story that night

Or how about East Coast of America power failure result of latest internet worm,

Hundreds die as rampaging gangs take advantage of the blackout for looting.

Thankfully the last bit didn't happen, but if you are an agent of chaos the more you create, the merrier.

The bomb & virus aren't mutually exclusive. If I was doing this I'd do both at the same time to add to the panic.

Imagine if on 9/11 the stock exchanges around the world were effected by virii & had to close, the power failed in may parts of the US, 10% of PC users struck by virus all at the same time.

Now that's gonna really stir things up.

I beleive modern western society is so reliant on computers & the internet for it's comms if you could cause it to collapse for 1/2 weeks then the resullts would impact the abilities of the food retailers' logistics to resupply.

A large city relies on daily deliveries of food to it's retailers and within a few days there will be nothing left to feed the population.

Food riots in large cities would result within a week, smaller cities soon after.

Now if you live in the desert in Iraq you're not going to give a toss.

[THE RADICAL]

Does anyone have any information on whether or not we have some kind of cyber-army within the US that defends and coordinates attacks using the internet and other means as well? I'd be willing to bet that we have something like that to protect us from cyber-terrorism. However, steve.milner, it does make sense to be a little paranoid as I haven't heard of anything really unless the NSA has something up thier sleeve.

I guess the majority will just have to trust thier nation.

When I get out of collage though my I plan on investigating things like this for myself and seeing if maybe I can help at all.

--Peace

[bballad]

I would be suprised if terrorists where looking into cyberterror seriously, you can do a lot more monitary and physical damage with real bombs. read a bit of www.vnyths.com for a antihistary view of all of this

[THE RADICAL]

I would be suprised if terrorists where looking into cyberterror seriously, you can do a lot more monitary and physical damage with real bombs.

I don't know about that.

*Blackouts
*Loss of data for banks
*Espionage
*Stock Exchange Fraud
*Tampering with records
*Military and government networks

I'm being very broad, and the list keeps growing.

So I think there's enough stuff there that could raise ones eye-brow you can never be to safe with these cowards.

By the way bballad, that link you gave doesn't work for me.

[keezel]

Does anyone have any information on whether or not we have some kind of cyber-army within the US that defends and coordinates attacks using the internet and other means as well? I'd be willing to bet that we have something like that to protect us from cyber-terrorism. However, steve.milner, it does make sense to be a little paranoid as I haven't heard of anything really unless the NSA has something up thier sleeve.

I don't know many details, and I only know what I know bc of family that I have in the military (*high* in the military) so I can't speak about the NSA bc I have no clue, but I know that there are depts. in every branch of the military that protects against cyber-terrorism, and even tries to find ways to attack our enemies by disrupting flow of info. I can also say that terrorists *do* try cyber attacks but they are usually limited and they do it when nothing else is going on....basically when they're bored (like most hackers). That's all I can say....and I don't know much more anyway.

[debwalin]

My husband and I were discussing this the other night, and the lacksadaisical attitude most Americans have about cyber-terrorism. Think about if for just a minute.

Every intersection w/ a stop light in the US is controlled by computer.
Every railroad crossing in the US is controlled by computer.
ATM machines
Banking computer systems
Credit Card Computer systems
Cell phones
90% of all gas stations are on some type of computer system at the pump.
Hospitals
Power plants, both Electrical and Nuclear (now there's a thought to give you happy dreams)
Water Sanitizing Plants


Even our radio stations, TV stations, and weather broadcasting would be screwed. Think about these things combined. Then think about any number of them happening at the same time, along with a physical attack on the US. Think about the fear of 9/11, then think about what would have happened if every intersection in NYC suddenly was w/out a stop light. Or if a large portion of the US lost power. You say well these wouldn't really cause the death and destruction that a plane into the side of a building caused, but what about a strategically placed power outage, and someone in hospitals to sabotage their generators at the same time. There isn't a lot we can do about a lot of these things, but I think it's something a lot of people are laughing at, and that maybe should be taken just a little bit more seriously.