[iwar] [fc:FBI.plays.cyber-fear.card.again]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-08-06 20:39:06


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Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2002 20:39:06 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:FBI.plays.cyber-fear.card.again]
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FBI plays cyber-fear card again
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 06/08/2002 at 21:24 GMT

There's a new warning from the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection
Center (NIPC), an elite cyber squad famous for infecting its own network
with SirCam, and which consistently manages to worry us about the wrong
things at the wrong time. 

Today it's a blistering cyber attack from Europe targeting American ISPs
and Web sites.  Only it seems not to have occurred, in spite of being
based on 'credible information'.  One has to wonder if the original
source might be an IRC channel full of boastful young wannabes. 

"On the afternoon of August 05, 2002, the National Infrastructure
Protection Center received credible, but non-specific information that
wide-scale hacker attacks against U.S.  Web sites and Internet Service
Providers (ISP) are being planned for later tonight, possibly emanating
from Western Europe. 

The purpose of this alert is to recommend that Web site and ISP
administrators heighten their awareness of network traffic during this
period and encourage them to report suspected malicious activities to
their local FBI office or the NIPC and to other appropriate
authorities."

One imagines from the wording that devastating DoS attacks, a minor
nuisance requiring no skills, were feared.  Perhaps the would-be
attackers couldn't quite figure out how to accomplish their diabolical
mission.  Of course there's always the possibility that the announcement
itself, exhibiting the NIPC's remarkable vigilance and incredible powers
of infiltration, discouraged them. 

Or perhaps it was just another piece of alarmist fluff cooked up by the
NIPC public relations office.  It's been a while since NIPC was in the
news (and ages since it was in the news for something other than
ridicule), so the PR bunnies may well have felt it time for a little
publicity stunt. 

We note that the venerable cyber-sleuth agency is slated to be removed
from FBI auspices and assimilated by the proposed Department of Homeland
Security, an even vaster bureaucracy in which, we expect, it will
continue to languish peacefully as it has, or more so.  ®

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