DefenseTech Military.com
  • Categories
  • Full Archives
  • Monthly Archives
  • About Defense Tech
Subscribe to RSS

About Defense Tech

Defense Tech exam­ines the inter­sec­tion of tech­nol­ogy and defense from every angle and pro­vides analy­sis on what’s ahead.

Tip Us Off

Tip for Defense Tech?

SEND IT!

It’s Confidential!

Categories

  • 'Canes
  • Afghan Update
  • Ammo and Munitions
  • Armor
  • Around the Globe
  • Av Week Extra
  • Axe in Iraq (and Elsewhere)
  • Bizarro
  • Blimps
  • Blog Bidness
  • Body Armor Blues
  • Bomb Squad
  • Brownshoes in Action
  • Bubbleheads, etc.
  • Cammo Green
  • Catch the "Buzz"
  • Chem-Bio
  • Civilian Apps
  • Cloak and Dagger
  • Commandos
  • Comms
  • Contingency Ops
  • Cops and Robbers
  • Cyber-warfare
  • Data Diving
  • Defense Tech Poll
  • Defense Tech Radio
  • Dissent Tech
  • Door Kickers
  • Drones
  • DT Administrivia
  • Eat DT's Dust
  • Extra! Extra!
  • Eye on China
  • Fast Movers
  • FCS Watch
  • Fire for Effect
  • FOS Files
  • Friday Funnies
  • Gadgets and Gear
  • Going Green
  • Grand Ole Osprey
  • Ground Vehicles
  • Guns
  • Homeland Security
  • In the Weeds with Eric
  • Info War
  • Iraq Diary
  • Jarhead Jazz
  • JSF Watch
  • Just War Theories
  • Lasers and Ray Guns
  • Less-lethal
  • Logistics
  • Los Alamos and Labs
  • M4 Monopoly
  • Medic!
  • Mercs
  • Missiles
  • Money Money Money
  • Most Wanted
  • MRAP Edge
  • Net-Centric
  • Nukes
  • Old Skool
  • Our Shrinking Planet
  • Planes, Copters, Blimps
  • Podcast
  • Politricks
  • Polmar's Perspective
  • Popular Mechanics
  • Rapid Fire
  • Raptor Watch
  • Red Team
  • Retro-Futuro
  • Robots
  • Roll Your Own
  • Sabra Tech
  • Ships and Subs
  • Snipertech
  • Soldier Systems
  • Space
  • Special Ops
  • Star Wars
  • Strategery
  • Stray Trons
  • Tactical Development
  • Terror Tech
  • The Deadlies
  • The Defense Biz
  • The Peoples' Site
  • The Sunday Paper
  • The Tanker Tango
  • The View from Av Week
  • Those Nutty Norks
  • Training and Sims
  • Trimble on the Case
  • Uncategorized
  • Video Lounge
  • War Update
  • Ward'z Wonderz
  • You can run…

Archives

  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • February 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005
  • June 2005
  • May 2005
  • April 2005
  • March 2005
  • February 2005
  • January 2005
  • December 2004
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004
  • August 2004
  • July 2004
  • June 2004
  • May 2004
  • April 2004
  • March 2004
  • February 2004
  • January 2004
  • December 2003
  • November 2003
  • October 2003
  • September 2003
  • August 2003
  • July 2003
  • June 2003
  • May 2003
  • April 2003
  • March 2003
  • February 2003
  • January 2003

Home » Around the Globe » Israel’s Cyber Shot at Syria

Israel’s Cyber Shot at Syria

ew-ac.jpg

Our friends at Av Week have this story so wired, I couldnt wait to post this update. And, as you well know, Im a bit obsessed with it.

It now seems that one of Israels first shots in its raid into Syria in September was a fusil­lade of 1s and 0s.

From Aviation Week:

The U.S. was mon­i­tor­ing the elec­tronic emis­sions com­ing from Syria dur­ing Israels September attack; andalthough there was no direct American help in destroy­ing a nuclear reac­torthere was some advice pro­vided before­hand, mil­i­tary and aero­space indus­try offi­cials tell Aviation Week & Space Technology.

That sur­veil­lance is pro­vid­ing clues about how Israeli air­craft man­aged to slip past Syrian air defenses to bomb the site at Dayr az-​​Zawr. The main attack was pre­ceded by an engage­ment with a sin­gle Syrian radar site at Tall al-​​Abuad near the Turkish bor­der. It was assaulted with what appears to be a com­bi­na­tion of elec­tronic attack and pre­ci­sion bombs to enable the Israeli force to enter and exit Syrian air­space. Almost imme­di­ately, the entire Syrian radar sys­tem went off the air for a period of time that included the raid, say U.S. intel­li­gence analysts.

There was no U.S. active engage­ment other than con­sult­ing on poten­tial tar­get vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, says a U.S. elec­tronic war­fare specialist.

Elements of the attack included some brute-​​force jam­ming, which is still an impor­tant ele­ment of attack­ing air defenses, U.S. ana­lysts say. Also, Syrian air defenses are still cen­tral­ized and depen­dent on ded­i­cated HF and VHF com­mu­ni­ca­tions, which made them vul­ner­a­ble. The ana­lysts dont believe any part of Syrias elec­tri­cal grid was shut down. They do con­tend that net­work pen­e­tra­tion involved both remote air-​​to-​​ground elec­tronic attack and pen­e­tra­tion through computer-​​to-​​computer links.

There also were some higher-​​level, non­tac­ti­cal pen­e­tra­tions, either direct or as diver­sions and spoofs, of the Syrian command-​​and-​​control capa­bil­ity, done through net­work attack, says an intel­li­gence specialist.

These obser­va­tions pro­vide evi­dence that a sophis­ti­cated net­work attack and elec­tronic hack­ing capa­bil­ity is an oper­a­tional part of the Israel Defense Forces arse­nal of dig­i­tal weapons.

Despite being hob­bled by the restric­tions of secrecy and diplo­macy, Israeli mil­i­tary and gov­ern­ment offi­cials con­firm that net­work inva­sion, infor­ma­tion war­fare and elec­tronic attack are part of Israels defense capabilities. 

And the cool thing was that it seems that Israel was able to do this cyber attack from the air.

That abil­ity of non­stealthy Israeli air­craft to pen­e­trate with­out inter­fer­ence rests in part on tech­nol­ogy, car­ried on board mod­i­fied air­craft, that allowed spe­cial­ists to hack into Syrias net­worked air defense sys­tem, said U.S. mil­i­tary and indus­try offi­cials in the attacks aftermath.

Network raiders can con­duct their inva­sion from an air­craft into a net­work and then jump from net­work to net­work until they are into the tar­gets com­mu­ni­ca­tions loop. Whether the net­work is wire­less or wired doesnt mat­ter any­more, says a U.S. indus­try specialist. 

And it seems the Syrian gov­ern­ments self-​​imposed secrecy was partly to blame for the shut-​​down.

The raid on Syria was a strate­gic sig­nal, not a threat, says a retired senior mil­i­tary offi­cial who flew com­bat in the region for decades. This [raid] was about what we per­ceived are their capa­bil­i­ties [for devel­op­ing weapons of mass destruc­tion] and about deter­rence more than cre­at­ing damage.

He con­tends that Syrian pro­ce­dures even con­tributed to the suc­cess­ful bomb­ing raid.

Part of the vul­ner­a­bil­ity of the Syrian facil­ity was that they kept it so secret that there wer­ent enough air defenses assigned to it, the offi­cial contends. 

Be sure to read the rest of this fas­ci­nat­ing story and really kick ass report­ing HERE.

(Gouge: NC)

– Christian

Share |

November 26th, 2007 | Around the Globe | 267818 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2007/11/26/israels-cyber-shot-at-syria/Israel%27s+Cyber+Shot+at+Syria2007-11-26+16%3A52%3A49Ward You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

« « Blackbird Drivers Strut Their Stuff | Scan Eagle From a DDG » »

This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.

  1. Roy Smith says:
    November 26, 2007 at 1:37 pm

    Tom Bearden would have a field day with this.He is the one advo­cat­ing super weapons based on Nikola Tesla’s the­o­ries of elec­tro­mag­net­ics & scalar lon­gi­tu­di­nal waves.I know that it is more plau­si­ble to talk about UFOs & space aliens com­pared to what I’m about to say,but what if what Israel bombed was just a sim­ple antenna array like the array set up used for HAARP(High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program).Most peo­ple talk­ing about this seem to agree that it wasn’t a nuclear plant or facility.What if it was an EMP gen­er­at­ing sta­tion being built with the help of the Russians?A Less sci­ence fic­tion sound­ing expla­na­tion could be that the Syrians & Russians were set­ting up a “STEEL YARD/​STEEL WORKS” Over-​​the-​​Horizon Radar facility,the kind that trans­mits the infa­mous “Russian Woodpecker” signal.Conspiracy the­o­rists believe that the STEEL YARD OTH Radar can be used as an EMP weapon just like,supposedly,HAARP can.Both operate,I believe,in the ionos­phere of our atmos­phere.
    Whatever the Israelis attacked,it was some­thing that they felt very threat­ened by,& it wasn’t nuclear.Also,the Israelis used some “voodoo(a “fig­u­ra­tive” descrip­tion for lack of a bet­ter one)” against Syria’s air defenses.I’ll bet that EMP was involved some­how with what­ever Israel did.

    Reply
  2. Wembley says:
    November 26, 2007 at 2:20 pm

    How about some­thing on the key part of the story — what did they attack, and why?
    It wasn;t a nuke plant, but what was it??

    Reply
  3. Roy Smith says:
    November 26, 2007 at 2:31 pm

    What if what was being built was along the lines of a Duga-​​3 “STEEL YARD” OTH Radar sys­tem? The value of such a sys­tem escapes me,but I did some fur­ther read­ing on this type of radar sys­tem & a facil­ity was located in the Ukraine with the trans­mit­ter located out­side of Chernobyl(& we all know what hap­pened in Chernobyl).I’m try­ing to tie this all in with what Israel attacked.Also,right now Israel is hav­ing prob­lems on their north­ern bor­ders with their home satel­lite dishes’ sig­nals being inter­fered with(& inter­rupt­ing their get­ting Desperate Housewives).Something “non-​​nuclear” in nature is going on in Syria & is big enough to cause Israel to attack it.

    Reply
  4. txzen says:
    November 26, 2007 at 3:03 pm

    A facil­ity in the works wouldn’t have all of the final com­po­nents in the machines. I still don’t see how you can say what it was or wasn’t just by over head sat shots.

    Reply
  5. Roy Smith says:
    November 26, 2007 at 3:16 pm

    Obviously,Israel had Mossad agents or maybe some other spe­cial ops assets in Syria & they found out some­thing impor­tant enough to bomb it.I looked at the pho­tographs too & it just looks like a build­ing & noth­ing more​.It had to be some­thing of WMD(nuclear,biological,or chem­i­cal) mag­ni­tude in order for Israel to bomb it.Whatever it was,it spooked the Israelis enough to attack it.

    Reply
  6. Brian says:
    November 26, 2007 at 5:19 pm

    Well, if the thing is a car­bon copy of a NK nuclear facil­ity, then any­one with detailed knowl­edge of that facil­ity would be able to rec­og­nize this one. If Israel had knowl­edge of NK advi­sors on site, then that’s a good tip off.

    Reply
  7. Roy Smith says:
    November 26, 2007 at 6:46 pm

    I looked at pic­tures of Russian OTH radar sys­tem like Duga-​​3 & no won­der it was nick­named “STEELYARD” because thats what it looks like,a big steel yard.I guess we’ll never really know what the Israelis bombed,we can only guess.
    Hey,off topic,can some­body start a thread about India send­ing com­bat trained “camels” to the Sudan.That should really irk the wor­shipers of mod­ern tech­nol­ogy that some­one would have to resort to a Dromedary camel(they didn’t say if the Indian camels had one hump or two) for trans­porta­tion.
    Back to Israel,I wish that some­one would blow up that pho­to­graph of the area bombed,both before & after pictures.The pic­tures are too small to fig­ure out what the build­ings are or were.

    Reply
  8. Deus Vult says:
    November 26, 2007 at 8:21 pm

    Roy Smith said:
    > Whatever it was,it spooked the Israelis enough to attack it.
    Yeah, that’s one of the many inter­est­ing things about this tale. If the AvWeek story is right, then Israel has revealed in a very explicit way a major capa­bil­ity for network/​cyber attack. But, once warned, peo­ple who might think they’re going to get the same treat­ment (think Iran) will start imple­ment­ing coun­ter­mea­sures, of which there are prob­a­bly many.
    So what was of such imme­di­ate impor­tance to Israel that they made that sac­ri­fice? Something actu­ally con­nected with the for­mer build­ing? Sending an urgent mes­sage to Iran?
    Or what?

    Reply
  9. C-Low says:
    November 27, 2007 at 12:11 am

    Sorry to inter­rupt the Scalar Theory debate BUT..
    Has any­one con­sider the pos­si­bil­ity that this was just another loca­tion of Syrian Chem/​Bio weapon pro­duc­tion plant?
    Such a tar­get would require the odd lit­eral “cover up” from the Syrian Army. Such a tar­get would be jus­ti­fied by any west­ern even pansy play­book.
    Such a tar­get would make a excel­lent exam­ple of “what if” sene­rio for other such loca­tions of more impor­tance in say more impor­tant nations?”.
    Lets recap Israel strikes mys­tery site (basi­cally b*tch slap­ping Syria WITH EASE DID I SAY EASE) and then all the sud­den out of their grace of piece (I am sure)„, Iran halts EFP trans­ports, Syria cuts Jihad Road by over half and now the kicker Syria wants to come back to the jaw jaw table. Hmmmmmm
    Yeahh no con­nec­tion at all.
    I can just imag­ine being Assad a Western styled dic­ta­tor from a MINORITY SECT, allied with a Revolutionary Radical Islamist Nation that over 70% of his Gen pop con­sider heretics, while at the same time his own west­ern ways are con­sider heretics by both groups, and then I just got a in your face exam­ple of Infidel Magic try­ing to decide between WAR and Jaw Jaw.

    Reply
  10. Roy Smith says:
    November 27, 2007 at 5:23 am

    Syria is too close to Israel to be allowed to house nuclear weapons.Maybe this was Israel’s “Cuban Missile Crisis.” Maybe this was an Iranian site being set up for lis­ten­ing &/​or stor­ing Iranian missiles.I read some­where that Iran already has nuclear war­heads that she bought from Pakistan’s Abdul Qadeer Khan.Maybe what Israel bombed was a stag­ing area where Iran could put together her acquired nuclear war­heads with mis­siles she sup­plied to Syria or was stor­ing in Israel.A sce­nario like that though makes me won­der why Syria would have built such a sen­si­tive site ABOVE ground & not under­ground like Iran is doing with her sen­si­tive sites.

    Reply
  11. Roy Smith says:
    November 27, 2007 at 5:37 am

    Sorry,I meant mis­siles Iran was pos­si­bly stor­ing in Syria not Israel.Knowing even less about mis­sile silos,could this build­ing be the begin­ning stage of build­ing ICBM mis­sile silos,maybe for Iran’s long range mis­siles or for Russia? Or maybe it was a stor­age build­ing for Syria’s newly acquired Iskander missiles,which also could pos­si­bly be mated with Iran’s acquired nuclear war​heads​.It doesn’t make sense to me though that Syria would not build deep hard­ened bunkers to store any valu­able weapons KNOWING what a short hair trig­ger that Israel oper­ates on.Maybe Syria put TOO MUCH faith into the air defense sys­tem she just bought from Russia.

    Reply
  12. MzK says:
    November 27, 2007 at 6:53 pm

    Does any­one know which plane that is in the pic­ture ?
    Thanks

    Reply
  13. Roy Smith says:
    November 28, 2007 at 7:02 am

    Is that a pic­ture of a C-​​37A Gulfstream V?

    Reply
  14. Roy Smith says:
    November 28, 2007 at 7:07 am

    Is that the EC-​​37 ver­sion of the Gulfstream V?

    Reply
  15. Roy Smith says:
    November 28, 2007 at 7:18 am

    Thank God for the Internet,I looked up Gulfstream V & Israel has a ver­sion called the Special Electronic Mission Aircraft.

    Reply
  16. Common Sense says:
    March 18, 2008 at 8:23 pm

    What a load of baloony…especially com­ing from C-​​Low. Utter garbage. Neither Iran nor Syria pos­sess even a resem­b­lence of a nuclear weapon…further, Israel was only test­ing routes to attach Iran…all this bs spec­u­la­tion about Israeli capa­bil­i­ties etc is just hype…overinflated egos try­ing to over­in­flate thier egos again.…please spare us the BS and get back into the real world.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Spam Protection by WP-SpamFree

    Most Popular Posts
    • What Does this Handle Do?
    • Marines Quiet About Brutal New Weapon
    • Starship Troopers Meets G.I. Joe
    • Dowd's Bogus Grief Deficit
    • Semi-auto Grenade Thrower
    • Adapting Women to Subs
    • Fort Hood Rampage
    • Keep it Simple
    • Mystery Drone Revealed
    • REPLACEMENT ARM, GOOD AS NEW
    Recent Comments
    • Fort Hood Rampage
      "I'd say go read some history on fascist ideology and then compare...
      Sam
    • Semi-auto Grenade Thrower
      No. I am not saying a grenade launcher on a rifle is a hoax. I...
      Zandor
    • Semi-auto Grenade Thrower
      For someone who trashes all the readers of the blog you sure do...
      a1189
    • Market for Acoustic Defense Systems Heats Up
      These devices vibrate tissue and bone not just...
      WJS
    • Semi-auto Grenade Thrower
      So are you saying the grenade launcher is a hoax or the M-16?...
      WJS
    • Fort Hood Rampage
      Dear Cannon Fodder; Only politically correct patriots should be accepted...
      Zandor
    • Dowd’s Bogus Grief Deficit
      LOL Still all this pissing an moaning about the editorial...
      Philo
    • Fort Hood Rampage
      I'd say go read some history on fascist ideology and then compare that...
      Philo
    • Fort Hood Rampage
      Islame isn't a race, genius……
      Philo
    • Semi-auto Grenade Thrower
      I sure as hell don't need to have someone take pictures of me...
      Zandor
    Recent Articles
    • Semi-​​auto Grenade Thrower
    • Market for Acoustic Defense Systems Heats Up
    • Fort Hood Rampage
    • Keep it Simple
    • Airbag Defense
    • Dowd’s Bogus Grief Deficit
    • Did Someone Move the Furniture Around?
    • Lockheed Says Sbirs Still on Track For 2010
    • What Does this Handle Do?
    • Adapting Women to Subs
  • Channels: Military.com | Military Benefits | Military News | Off Duty | Join the Military | Military Education | Veteran Jobs | Military Money | Military Deals | Military Family | Military Community
  • Military.com Network: Military.com | MilBlogging | Defense Tech | DoD Buzz | SpouseBuzz | Fred's Place | GI Bill Express
  • Services: Army | Navy | Air Force | Marine Corps | Coast Guard | National Guard | Military Spouse
  • About Military.com About Us | Advertise With Us | Press | Affiliate Program | Monster Network | Help | Feedback | Privacy Policy | User Agreement | © 2009 Military Advantage