Internet War Games

Internet War Games

www.theregister.co.uk

Business and government leaders from the US, UK and three other countries will spend much of this week simulating and defending against a large-scale cyber attack in an exercise designed to strengthen coordinated responses to what many perceive as a growing threat.
Participants of Cyber Storm II, which also include about 40 private-sector companies, will enact a scenario in which "persistent, fictitious adversaries" launch an extended attack using websites, email, phones, faxes and other communications systems. Other countries involved are Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Interesting to see this happening. Wonder if this is a general response to the recent chinese activity online, or just a PR stunt.

Will be keeping a close eye on t-internet this week thats for sure. Hopefully they won't tamper with too much, ie DNS root servers!

www.theregister.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

On one hand, it's good to see that they are taking cyber threats seriously.

On the other... they can't perform a proper drill for it, unless it actually is an adversary they are combating.

Hackers among others, will read this and laugh. Those who understand how attacks are carried out know that each new attack is typically unlike any other. This is the point to carrying out these attacks successfully.

It doesn't matter how much time and effort you spend preparing for these attacks. You won't know what you are looking for when the pro's actually do hit you, and you won't know it's happened, until it's done and over with.


On a humorous note... Cyberstorm 2? Come on.

Those who have played the game might find it funny too.

"Cyberstorm 2; Corporate Wars."
That was a good game.

The military and government have hackers too. There is even a hacker training school that some people attend. I think they could do just fine simulating an enemy attack.

reply to post by johnsky


I think you're taking this excersize too litterale. This is all hypotheticall in approach and in drill.

Its like preparing for a nuclear bomb to go off in some U.S. city. You can't tell me that every bomb to go off will be the same but its good to know how to respond in such an event which is exactly what this drill is designed to do.

Its not how but who what when where and why.

I agree fully with johnsky, i'm someone who used to work in this field.

The simple fact is that this exercise will no doubt involve some DNS attacks, the odd trojan sent out etc, nothing major. When some hackers actually want to do damage they will find every exploit they can and launch it all at once. The sheer amount of expolits will mean that they cannot respond succesfully. The only thing to do will be completely shut down anything that is effected.

The secure nets that government and military use will no doubt be unharmed as they run on a completely different level and most of the civilian population is unaware they even exist.

This exercise is a pointless one in my view, an attempt at PR to make it look like the government is on top of the issue. The simple fact however is that if a big attack comes they will be using unknown, unpatched exploits.

For example, last week came word that a private website operator regularly received official Air Force communications containing sensitive information because his email address was similar to those of military leaders. Additionally, a Pentagon official has now confirmed that an attack last year on a network belonging to the Department of Defense involved a Windows vulnerability and allowed the intruders to steal "an amazing amount" of data.

Well, I don't need to sound all paranoid just because it came to my mind that many times I heard big heads talking about a DRILL EXERCISE against a large-scale ATTACK designed to STRENGTHEN COORDINATED RESPONSES, that's exactly what ends up happening anyway, do I?



Peace

Exactly......the Red and Yellow sides of the network will go unharmed as usual, and it will always be that way. I cant think of a way that a hacker could get into the really classified stuff, unless someone in the DoD let them in, and even then I dont think they would get very far.

Im not surprised considering China has launched a proverbial virtual armada upon US and UK govt sites!

Perhaps this is the new form of training for defence.

Originally posted by 44soulslayer
Im not surprised considering China has launched a proverbial virtual armada upon US and UK govt sites!

Yes lots of attacks have been coming in but remember something, the websites are just the front end of the organisations. The pentagon even if hacked wouldn't have anything seriously sensitive on any machine connected to the internet. If they did then they deserve whats coming to them.

All sensitive information will be kept either on closed networks (this means networks without any external access) or on the secure internet that's used for government and intelligence services only.

For the life of me i can't remember the name of the secure internet that the military use at the moment.