A Moment of Paranoia

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?

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.

;)

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.

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

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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

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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.

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 :cool:

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

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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well put it this way I know that the UK has cyber 'crime' (read cyber terrorist since terrorism is considered a major crime in the UK as well as the US) divisions in MI5, MI6 and NCIS as well as some related areas in GCHQ. We also have a specific National Hi-tech crime unit (NHTCU), so I would be very surprised if the FBI, CIA, NSA and some areas of the pentagon didn't have similar outfits. I don't know what freedom of information is like in the US these days but if it's like the UK you're not going to find out much about any of these departments unless you know someone personally or are part of it yourself - in either case you are not likely to be speaking much more than in general terms. National security issues being what they are :D

Z

Not sure now (probably homland securit) but the secrate service and NSA use t oshare cyber crime duties (secrate service delt with piracy, NSA delt with ogvermental break ins). The FBI also had a division but it was something of a joke. Ther is also a cyber security zar now (been around for a while.) again read www.vmyths.com it gose over a lot of the current stuff.

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Originally posted here by THE RADICAL


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.

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humm as seen with latest blackouts (and the california ones) human stupidity can do all of that with out the aid of terrorism. throw in a natural disaster and that cost us a lot more the terrorism andwe have allways survived it. As for the military, unless a lot has changed in the last couple of years, nothing important is on the public internet.

Just one thing: Its all worth while in the security industry to be paranoid. Lets face paranoia is what keeps people on their toes. I believe this should wholeheartedly be applied to the concept of terrorism. Any kind of laid back attitude to security is a red flag to terrorists.

yes and no, its good for a knoladagable worker to be pariniod when their job is security, its bad for managment to be parinoid, they are liable to pull the company off the web. So as a security IT worker you need t obe vigalint, but act calm to keep your managers calm.

Outward calmness
Inward paranoia

almost ying yang like

/me goes looking for the analects

Just because you are paraniod it doens't mean that we aren't out to get you ;)

Steve

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humm as seen with latest blackouts (and the california ones) human stupidity can do all of that with out the aid of terrorism. throw in a natural disaster and that cost us a lot more the terrorism andwe have allways survived it. As for the military, unless a lot has changed in the last couple of years, nothing important is on the public internet.

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You don't seem to understand the point. Of course with just a blackout or a downed site there is an inconvienecne and yes, we've allways surivived them but from a terrorists prespective (given that it was a terrorist act that caused this) we are one thing.

*Very vulnerable

And as everyone here knows, when a vulnerability is exploited it is very hard to deal with it and recover from it as well. No, I am not promoting mass hysteria, but I would agree mostly with debwalin.

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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.

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Good point...

Holy crap someone agreed with me, that never happens! :D

I agree, mass hysteria isn't the answer, I don't know what the answer is, but I'd like to see someone take some kind of pro-active action, and stop being reactive to everything.

I don't want to flip out and start stocking up on canned goods and bottled water and move to the mountains and starting shooting all my food myself, but I would like to be a little more prepared than our illustrious president suggested w/ his plastic wrap and duct tape idea.

I think the general idea is that the "masses" are too stupid to understand what the govt is doing, and so they don't tell us anything, either that or we're really screwed, cause they're not doing anything. I *hope* there is a great deal being done that we just haven't been told about cause they don't want to "spill the beans" so to speak. However, I'm afraid that there is more nonchalance and brushing it off to the side than there is serious precautions being taken.