Archive for the ‘Cyberterrorism’ Category

A recent article citing FBI’s skeptical view of cyberterrorism caught my eye this morning. Cyberterrorism is a touchy subject, and it’s interesting that the division about the myth/reality status of politically-motivated attacks extends even to divisions of the DHS itself. Overall, it’s been a devisive issue: some well-respected security folks like Bruce Schneier have made convincing arguments about how it’s bogus, while other well-respected security folks like Dorothy Denning have made convincing arguments about why it’s real.

In the context of the overall DHS security posture, it’s clear that the FBI is the odd man out. In other words, the rest of the DHS doesn’t exactly share the FBI’s optimism about terror groups’ lack of initiative, training, or savvy – for example, back in the day when he was the “big cahuna” Tom Ridge told us that ” Terrorists can sit at one computer connected to one network and can create worldwide havoc — don’t necessarily need bomb or explosives to cripple a sector of the economy, or shutdown a power grid.” The former chief “cyberterrorism czar” Richard Clarke told us, “We have to differentiate from an attack that has already happened and the kind of attack that will come… From our perspective, we don’t worry about when; we worry about what they can do and start locking doors.” He’s also said:

Well, the fact that these people are gathering skills in cyber war capability is very troubling, combined with the fact that we know that they’re looking on the Web for hacking tools. We know that, because we’ve seized some of their computers. It suggests to me that Al Qaeda may be trying to grow an indigenous cyber warfare capability. I think it suggests that someday we may see Al Qaeda, if it’s still alive and operating, use cyberspace as a vehicle for attacking infrastructure — not with bombs, but with bytes.

Personally, I don’t really have an opinion about cyberterrorism. However, I think the willingness of the FBI to speak in a manner contrary to the rest of the DHS shows “go-get-’em”-itude on their part. Props to them for fighting the tide of FUD and telling it like it is – these probably won’t be popular comments over at the DHS.

“It’s highly unlikely that the United States will experience a crippling “digital Pearl Harbor,” the CIO of homeland security says. “While this is a possibility, the probability is relatively low,” Steven Cooper said in an online chat sponsored by The Washington Post. “We have done a lot in the federal arena to provide multilayered security for our digital environments and continually ‘red team’ our networks and applications to find vulnerabilities.”
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