‘Operation Titstorm’ Hackers Have Declared Cyberwar on Australia
ASHER MOSES writes in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Groups opposing the government’s internet censorship plans have condemned attacks on government websites, saying it will do little to help their cause, while Communications Minister Stephen Conroy called them “totally irresponsible”.
Hackers connected with the group Anonymous, known for its war against Scientology, this morning launched a broad attack on government websites.
U.S. Military Prepares for Cyber War
Surfdaddy Orca writes in h+ magazine:
Ever wonder how exactly the U.S. military would fight a cyber war? In August 2009, the U.S. Air Force activated its new cyberspace combat unit, the 24th Air Force, to “provide combat-ready forces trained and equipped to conduct sustained cyber operations.”
It’s commanded by former Minuteman missile and satellite-jamming specialist Major General Richard Webber. (And under his command are two wings, the 688th Information Operations Wing and the 67th Network Warfare Wing, plus a combat communications units.)
Meanwhile, to counter the threat of cyber warfare, DARPA is still deploying the National Cyber Range, a test bed of networked computers to test countermeasures against “cyberwar”. (According to one report, it provides “a virtual network world . to be populated by mirror computers and inhabited by myriad software sim-people ‘replicants,’ and used as a firing range in which to develop the art of cyber warfare.”)
And the Obama administration has even added a military cybersecurity coordinator to the National Security team.
Hackers Face Off At The U.S. Cyber Challenge
Jeanne Meserve and Mike M. Ahlers cover the U.S. Cyber Challenge for CNN:
With the coolness of a card shark at the final table of the World Series of Poker, Matt Bergin pulls the hood of his brown sweatshirt over his head and concentrates on the task at hand.
The task: hacking into as many target computers as he can and then defending those computers from attacks by other skilled hackers.
Other skilled hackers like Michael Coppola, 17, a high school senior who, at this very moment, is hunched over a keyboard in his Connecticut home.
Or like Chris Benedict, 21, from the tiny town of Nauvoo, Illinois. Chris is sitting silently nearby, one of 15 “All Star” hackers who have taken over this spacious hotel conference room.
At days end, the moderator of this…
‘60 Minutes’ Still Says Hackers Caused Brazilian Blackout, Ignores Other Evidence
I’m one of those strange non-senior citizens who watches 60 Minutes on a regular basis (having a TiVo helps). So due to the controversy over a 2007 electrical blackout in Brazil that affected over 3 million people, I was expecting an update from 60 Minutes this week. They are sticking with their original story, still calling it “cyberwar”, and no mention that it might be due to poorly-maintained infrastructure, as WIRED and other sources say. My favorite part of the WIRED story is that the Brazilian government says their electric control systems aren’t connected to the internet.
Here’s the counter-story from Marcelo Soares at WIRED:
A massive 2007 electrical blackout in Brazil has been newly blamed on computer hackers, but was actually the result of a utility company’s negligent maintenance of high voltage insulators on two transmission lines. That’s according to reports from government regulators and others who investigated the incident for more than a year.
In a broadcast Sunday night, the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes cited unnamed sources in making the extraordinary claim that a two-day outage in the Atlantic state of Espirito Santo was triggered by hackers targeting a utility company’s control systems. The blackout affected 3 million people. Hackers also caused another, smaller blackout north of Rio de Janeiro in January 2005, the network claimed…
