How can we defend against cyber terrorism?

[antihaxor]

What methods do you think we as a nation (America) are vunerable too? I would like the secrurity gurus to use thier imagination and explore some possibilites.Maybe even JP would share his vewpoint. We could then explore our reponse to such attacks.

[spsman]

As a new recruit to anti-online this is my very first post!
Is there any decent free software to your knowledge that is available for win xp that will identify hack attempts, the IP addy of the hacker and perhaps even have a facility to return fire?

[Antivenom]

Hey

As a new recruit to anti-online this is my very first post!...

Are you talking about firewall's?
If so then zone alarm is compatible with XP
www.zonealarm.com

Hope that helps

[spsman]

i've allready got Tiny personal firewall which kindly informed me that a hack attempt had been made on my system. I also have the usual array of virus killas - what I really want to do is identify the ip of the offending system

[Conf1rm3d_K1ll]

Originally posted by spsman
As a new recruit to anti-online this is my very first post!
Is there any decent free software to your knowledge that is available for win xp that will identify hack attempts, the IP addy of the hacker and perhaps even have a facility to return fire?

You're WAY off topic here. I believe the original question was-

Originally posted by antihaxor
What methods do you think we as a nation (America) are vunerable too? I would like the secrurity gurus to use thier imagination and explore some possibilites.Maybe even JP would share his vewpoint. We could then explore our reponse to such attacks.

Antihaxor, a good article on this topic can be found on the AO home page. Just follow the are we ready for cyber terrorism link...

[freeOn]

Computer Security usually revolves around the user. Of course nothing is secure in this world it's all just an illusion to make you think you are in control. Anything can happen.

Computer Security = PATCHES, FIREWALLS, SECURE BUILDING, and ANTI VIRUS. oh READ THE NEWS!

Occasionally there are people who find new exploits but usually there is a fix rigt away at least within 24hours. That's what I mean by saying it all depends on the user, or the controller of a network.

Quantum Computing and Nano Technology is going to be the future of the computer industry as well as life. I suggest you look into those to understand a picture of where are world will be going.

[antihaxor]

Thanks..I have already read the article. I wanted to pick some other brains is all. I tried to ignore the prevous two posts in the hope they would just...go away and play somewhere else.

[spsman]

apologies - my error

[D.J.]

i agree with freeOn on this one. computer security depends on the user, and
there really just isn't such thing as "security", just obstacles in the efforts of
those out there to destroy. one of the best ways of helping to prevent this,
in my opinion, is education. some of the posts i've seen today have helped
prove this. many people think that hacking is all about destroying, or just
simply getting into a system. it is really exploring a system to gain knowledge.
why destroy when you can make a positive impact and gain respect. as for
trojans, the only reason why i even have a copy of sub7 is to study the source
code to learn ways to protect my own system.nothing more. if the media will
kindly do everyone a favor and stop writing all these articles on the bad things
"hackers" do, then maybe people will learn the difference between hacker and
cracker.

[nietzsche]

The answer is, as I've experienced it, NO. The subject is not meant to be inflamitory, but reflects the horrible experience I've had in just this item. The police don't typically know what the hell a computer is, what a "compromised" system means, and so on. Okay ... I see this is going to need some explaining:

In another forum, I talked about my experiences with crackers from the .cz (czhekoslovakia) domain. We had them nailed cold, down to a couple of IP addresses (sure, they could be spoofed ... but all you can really do is trace as far back as you can and go from there). The boxes were spooled to tape, and we were starting forensics on the boxes involved. We called the police in to get a report number, and the guy that they sent didn't know too much of anything - it was like, "so ... you mean, these guys from overseas can talk to this box through this wire-thingy? Woooooowwww ... <dummy mode on>". We started looking into getting the FBI involved, but they won't even come out until $400K damage has been caused.

Here's the breakdown:
Are we ready? No.
Until there exists crack teams in many metro PD's, we're not going to see this improve. Here's why - as an ISP, you obviously want to get the legal system (i.e. Government) involved in anything that is pretty large and international. However, the groups who *do* know what they're doing (NSA, FBI Cybercrime unit, CIA) typically don't like to talk with each other (like the old MI5-MI6 problems, too) and are busy chasing shadows as it is. So as an ISP the only reasonable state-side resource is the police. Who typically don't have a cybercrime unit. So the only thing that an ISP can really do is complain upstream until it comes to, say, AT&T talking to CZ.net or whoever. And at this point, it's been my experience that a lot of companies are simply too big, too slow, and too "busy" to persue the matter with the persistance that it needs.

Hopefully this gives some insight.

PS: The U.S. is vulnerable to a whole lot. Computer-crime, box-cutters, zero-tolerence weapons policies at schools gone haywire ... and so on.