Many nations are under constant cyber attack. The United States seems to be ground zero for the vast majority of the cyber attacks launched be their digital enemies around the world. A former CIA official provided the following statistics. In 2007 there were 37,000 reported breaches of government and private systems. In addition, there were nearly 13,000 direct assaults on federal agencies and 80,000 attempted computer network attacks on Defense Department systems.
In addition who could forget the U.S. Air Force commercial showing a picture of the pentagon and saying this building gets 6 million cyber attacks a day.
Cyber attacks are now expected to cause maximum damage because of the professional tools being used by the attackers. According to the cyber threat report released by Intelomics, the following list identifies the cyber attack techniques that have seen a significant increase in their level of sophistication.
- Internet social engineering attacks
- Wireless and wired network sniffers
- Packet spoofing
- Hijacking sessions
- Automated probes and scans
- GUI intruder tools
- Automated widespread attacks
- Widespread denial-of-service attacks
- Executable code attacks (against browsers)
- Techniques to analyze code to identify vulnerabilities
- Widespread attacks on DNS infrastructure
- Widespread attacks using NNTP to distribute attack
- “Stealth” and other advanced scanning techniques
- Windows-based remote controllable Trojans (Back Orifice)
- Email propagation of malicious code
- Wide-scale Trojan distribution
- Distributed attack tools
- Distributed denial of service attacks
- BotNets and Zombies
- Anti-forensic techniques
- Wide-scale use of worms
- Man-in-the Middle plus Man-in-the-Browser exploitation
Cyber threats are now demanding immediate attention because of the increased dangers they pose to commercial and government entities and national security. The Congressional Research Service study found the economic impact of cyber attacks on businesses has grown to over $226 billion annually. Despite the significant impact, there is no clear framework for business executives to assess the financial impact of their cyber risks. According to two new surveys, the threat to corporate computer systems from cyber attacks is getting worse, despite stronger corporate defenses. Some cyber security measures might include more restrictive hiring practices, restricting remote working arrangements, increasing monitoring of flexible work hours and telecommuting as well as restriction on access by trading partners, vendors and consultants. In addition, organizations must also increase computer security awareness training for information technology workers as well as the general systems/computer user community.
A cyber attack special investigator at Intelomics said, “the reports of attacks, breaches and system compromises that make the news are only the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of these attacks go undisclosed and thus are not covered by the media.”
Most nations do not have adequate IT security to protect against targeted cyber attacks. Technolytics have warned before that these cyber attackers are well financed and have an arsenal of highly sophisticated weapons that not only circumvent current security controls, but leverage anti-forensic techniques that remove evidence of their attacks. The United States, European Union, United Nations and NATO must act and act now. In view of the current situation I would like to suggest they seriously consider the following actions and move immediately to adopt and implement these measures.
1. Establish a cyber threat operating committee under the United Nations Security Council.
a. This cyber threat operating committee must be closely linked in a collaborative relationship with the Counter-Terrorism Committee.
2. Create a framework to determine what constitutes an act of cyber war and create a legal framework that addresses international criminal cyber acts.
3. Proactively create a framework of actions that can quickly be levied against cyber aggressors.
a. These actions must include both economic and military sanctions as well as suspension of connectivity to the Internet backbone by both physical communications cables and via satellite.
4. Create a cyber peacekeeping force that is a rapid response asset to assist in repelling any offensive cyber-based aggression.
In the interest of global peace, economic integrity and stability, I believe that the United States, European Union, United Nations and NATO must proactively send a stern warning to those who choose to use cyber weapons against other nations, that there will be severe consequences of such actions.
I could not agree more with your blog posting. The quest is — WHY hasent the U.S. Government, UN and NATO alread recognized this and taken action?
WHY?
I don’t think we know the true level of threat. The military likes to exaggerate, as do IT professionals.
“who could forget the U.S. Air Force commercial showing a picture of the pentagon and saying this building gets 6 million cyber attacks a day.” What defines an attack? IT professionals sometimes will count every extraneous packet as an attack, even just a ping. By that definition, your home network is probably attacked hundreds of times a day.
The list of techniques is just that, a list of potential attacks. Citing Back Orifice shows that it’s a list that nobody has updated in a long time — Back Orifice hasn’t been prevalent for many years.
Yes, attackers are getting more sophisticated; apparently faster than the people who make that list, but is that news? I believe there is a threat, but it needs to be defined before it can be remediated.
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As a systems administrator within DOD, I can tell you that foreign government regularly and frequently attack our cyber networks. At one time I managed a DOD firewall, and it’s logs almost on a weekly basis would show HUGH port scans and attempts to get in. There is a MASSIVE campaign of cyber warefare that is taking place daily against DOD.
Overall I think Russia and China have screwed the pooch.
They spent a great deal of time and energy making these systems to infiltrate and jam computer systems, and then uses them foolishly tipping their hand.
“Jamming” a country over a statue? Jamming a country the size of Connecticut in a war they could not possibly lose?
Stupidity.
In the end we will have better computer hacking and jamming than they ever will.…
Do you have a source citation for the CRS report? The $226 billion figure sounds about as scientific as most similar estimates…
CRS reference link
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/press-conference-financial-impact-cyber/story.aspx?guid=%7BE23459E1-5DAC-4098–9788-37D131AE0537%7D&dist=hppr
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Mr Coleman you are right and have been right. The business world is just now beginning to wake up and realize the threat that a cyber attack poses to their organization. For the small and medium size business, a cyber attack could very well drive them out of business. The briefings on this blog have given me all the evidence I need and I am taking action.
Having worked in IT, and studied cyber-security, I can tell you that the majority of internal systems are usually using very weak security. As mentioned by Ptsfp, passwords are kept simple and rarely if ever changed.
Most have the idea that as long as they put firewalls up to protect them from the outside, that they are safe.
The Network admin in Calif. proved that completely false, and he wasn’t truly being malicious.
Additionally, I remember hearing a report a few yrs back on cyber attacks against DOD targets. The real surprise in the report was that for every attack on a directly owned DOD site, there were 2 or 3 on contractors for the DOD, contractors that had a trust relationship with the DOD computer systems. Which meant that as soon as the contractors networks were compromised, the DOD information they had access to was also compromised.
Ultimately, it isn’t the flashy cyberwars with estonia, or against any other country, the real threat is the patient, invisible attack that sneaks in, stays as long as necessary to get as much information as possible, and then leaves.
“Ruining” hardware in order to cover ones tracks has become easier too. Every datacenter expects a hard drive crash every so often. So what if that crash just wiped out all evidence of an intruder in the system.
I could keep going…but don’t want to bore you too much.
Think about this, pretty much every PC and all the associated gear such as hard drives, monitors and thumb drives used on DoD systems are produced in China. What are the implications? Built in worm in thumb drives? Built in viruses? What malware might be lurking on the products the DoD buys from China? Hey, just asking.
One last thought. Until a few years ago one of the US premier test and evaluation organizations used Mac’s. They made that choice locally. When the DoD installed it’s own system Mac was replaced by Macroshaft.