A Moment of Paranoia

[Zonewalker]

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.

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

Z

[bballad]

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.

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.

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.

[Ennis]

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.

[bballad]

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.

[Ennis]

Outward calmness
Inward paranoia

almost ying yang like

/me goes looking for the analects

[steve.milner]

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

Steve

[THE RADICAL]

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.

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.

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.

Good point...

[debwalin]

Holy crap someone agreed with me, that never happens!

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.