[iwar] [fc:Cyberspace.Seen.Area.Of.'Great.Threat.And.Great.Danger']

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-06-07 08:01:41

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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2002 08:01:41 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:Cyberspace.Seen.Area.Of.'Great.Threat.And.Great.Danger']
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Aerospace Daily
June 7, 2002
Cyberspace Seen Area Of 'Great Threat And Great Danger'
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - U.S. Space Command expects an increase this year
in the number of attempts by hackers to break into Defense Department
computer networks, according to Lt. Gen. Ed Anderson, deputy commander in
chief.
One of the command's responsibilities is to meet all of the department's
current and future cyber threats and requirements, and Anderson said the
importance of the task can't be overemphasized.
"As a matter of fact," he said June 5 at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon
here, "I will tell you that if there's anything that keeps me awake at
night, more than the any of the other things we do, it's cyberspace. That
truly is an area of great threat and great danger."
From 1998 to 1999, he said, "there was a five-fold increase in the number of
events that we detected in terms of trying to get into our unclassified"
networks. Since then, "there has been a steady increase in the number of
events that have been detected ... and I can assure you" that the number for
2002 will be greater than the number for 2001. Last year, Anderson said,
"close to 30,000" events were detected, and "We expect over 40,000 events
this year in our unclassified nets."
In the period immediately after Sept. 11, he said, "we were very concerned
for cyber terrorism. We didn't know what was going to happen."
As North American Aerospace Defense Command dramatically increased the
number of jets on alert, U.S. Space Command, working with other government
agencies and industry, boosted surveillance of DOD computer networks to 24
hours a day, seven days a week.
"And interestingly enough," Anderson said, "what we found is that the number
of events went down - way down."
This, he said, was "attributable to a number of different things" including
the fact that "nobody wanted to draw attention to themselves at that
particular time because the nation was a little bit mad. If they saw
something like that they'd find the whole darn country coming down on top of
them."
But "as we started looking into this more closely," with the understanding
that "the al Qaeda depends upon cyber for command, control and
communications," it became apparent that "they did not want to draw
attention to their capabilities [in this area], so they, of course, took a
hide position."
In earlier remarks, Anderson said there should "be no doubt that [al Qaeda]
are leveraging information age technology as they conduct this war. This is
not an unsophisticated enemy."
At a May 22 conference at Peterson Air Force Base here, an Army Special
Forces officer made similar comments.
"The indigenous forces that we worked with [in Afghanistan], as well as the
Taliban and al Qaeda, have both satellite cell phone capability and
satellite communications capability," said Capt. "Dean," whose last name
can't be used for security reasons.
"Specifically, we've seen Taliban and al Qaeda - even as low-tech of an
organization and culture as they are, they understand that we, being the
United States and our coalition, understand that when they use their cell
phones, we're listening," he said. "We saw them begin to develop tactics,
techniques and procedures where they would move to isolated areas to conduct
their communication linkups, knowing that we would intercept those linkups
in that location, and probably respond ... not only do they have the
technologies but they're also aware of our technologies and counter them,
and they have developed procedures to counter our responses."
At the luncheon, Anderson cited the use of videotapes by Osama bin Laden,
and said, "they know that information is a powerful weapon, and it enables
them to sway public opinion."
-- Rich Tuttle

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