Bioterrorism Act

In some critical situations, some Governments, have typified the protocols under which water consumption is forbidden.  Canada and the USA have emergency plans over drinking water in case of a disaster. USA, under the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 has a detailed plan for any water system supplying drinking water to a population larger than 3300 people.

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Britain to build cyber attack forces to tackle IS, hackers

British spies are building elite cyber offensive forces to strike at Islamic State fighters, hackers and hostile powers, Chancellor George Osborne said on Tuesday after warning militants wanted to launch deadly digital attacks.

Islamic State was trying to develop the capability to attack British infrastructure such as hospitals, power networks and air traffic control systems with potentially lethal consequences, Osborne said.

In response, Britain will bolster spending on cyber defences, simplify its state cyber structures and build its own offensive cyber capability to attack adversaries.

"We will defend ourselves. But we will also take the fight to you," Osborne, Britain's second most powerful politician after Prime Minister David Cameron, said in a speech at Britain's GCHQ eavesdropping agency.

"We are building our own offensive cyber capability – a dedicated ability to counter-attack in cyberspace. When we talk about tackling (Islamic State), that means tackling their cyber threat as well as their guns, bombs and knives."

Britain's new cyber attack forces will be run jointly between GCHQ and the Defence Ministry and will target individual hackers, criminal gangs, militant groups and hostile powers, using a "full spectrum" of actions, Osborne said.

GCHQ traces its history back to World War One signals intelligence with Winston Churchill as its founder and once reported to the MI6 foreign intelligence service but has since gained significant influence as one of the world's pre-eminent eavesdropping agencies.

One of the most secret spy agencies in the world, its existence was only officially recognised legally by Britain in the 1990s.

After last Friday's Paris attacks, which killed at least 129 people and were claimed by Islamic State, Britain said it would boost staff at its domestic MI5 security service, MI6 and GCHQ by about 15 percent.


CYBER WAR

Osborne said public spending on cyber security would be almost doubled to a total of 1.9 billion pounds ($2.9 billion)over the period to 2020, saying the decision to ramp up cyber defence funding had been taken before Friday's bloodshed in Paris.

Islamic State was already using the internet for propaganda, to radicalise people and for planning purposes, he added

"They have not been able to use it to kill people yet by attacking our infrastructure through cyber attack," he said. "But we know they want it and are doing their best to build it.

GCHQ was currently monitoring cyber threats against 450 companies in aerospace, finance defence, energy and telecoms sectors, while the number of cyber national security incidents had doubled to 200 a month since last year, he said.

A new national cyber security plan drawn up by the government would feature a dedicated force to ensure faster and more effective responses to major online attacks. The force would be based at GCHQ in Cheltenham, southwest England.

Other elements of the plan included possible cooperation between internet service providers, with help from the government, to fend off malware attacks and block bad addresses used against British internet users, as well as a new institute to train coders, Osborne said.

British broadband provider TalkTalk suffered a cyber attack in October which affected 157,000 customers. This month, Britain and U.S. authorities carried out a drill with leading banks to test their response to a cyber incident in the financial sector.

"The experience in the last month of TalkTalk shows how cyber attack can suddenly go from a theoretical risk to a massive business cost," Osborne said.

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America could plunge into a blackout

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has told how the three electric systems could be brought down entirely by attacks on select stations. America could plunge into a blackout if only nine power plants were attacked.

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American Blackout

It seems that National Geographic channel got 'inspired' by the Blackout when they prepared this documentary that has an uncanny resemblance to the structure of my book, despite they told me it was mere chance.

Cyberwar will not take place

It all depends on how we understand cyberwar. Thomas Rid states in this article that all politically motivated cyber attacks are merely sophisticated versions of three activities that are as old as warfare itself: sabotage, espionage, and subversion.

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What is Stuxnet

"Stuxnet" is a computer worm designed to attack large-scale industrial facilities like power plants, dams, refineries or water treatment centers. It targets the computer systems used to monitor and control specific operations in those facilities, and most famously was used to destroy centrifuges in a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran.

In that case, the Stuxnet worm rewrote the code in a component that controlled the rotor speeds of the centrifuges. The code alteration resulted in slight variations in the rotor speeds, subtle enough not to cause attention but significant enough to cause physical damage to the centrifuges. The name "Stuxnet" comes from a combination of key file names hidden in the code.

Several features of the Stuxnet worm distinguished it as highly advanced. No previous computer virus had been used to physically sabotage industrial machinery. It is also unique in its ability to remain undetected for a long period of time, largely by sending fake messages that suggest processes are running normally. It has the ability to search for particular components, leaving others undisturbed. At least two U.S. computer systems in the United States were found to be "infected" by Stuxnet, but they were not "affected," according to Department of Homeland Security officials, because they did not match the Stuxnet requirements.

The sophistication and complexity of the Stuxnet worm has led researchers to believe that only a well-resourced nation-state could have developed it.

[Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/]

Stuxnet reminds me so much of výpadek...

The 2nd of November of 2011, Boston's npr news station, published this article in their website.

Read it through and change Stuxnet for výpadek, doesn't it sound familiar?

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The Stuxnet computer worm, arguably the first and only cybersuperweapon ever deployed, continues to rattle security experts around the world, one year after its existence was made public.

Apparently meant to damage centrifuges at a uranium enrichment facility in Iran, Stuxnet now illustrates the potential complexities and dangers of cyberwar.

Secretly launched in 2009 and uncovered in 2010, it was designed to destroy its target much as a bomb would. Based on the cyberworm's sophistication, the expert consensus is that some government created it.

"Nothing like this had occurred before," says Joseph Weiss, an expert on the industrial control systems widely used in power plants, refineries and nuclear facilities like the one in Iran. "Stuxnet was the first case where there was a nation-state activity to physically destroy infrastructure [via a cyberattack]."

Reactions to the use of Stuxnet in Iran generally fall into two categories. For those focused on the danger of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, Stuxnet was something to celebrate, because it set back Iran's nuclear program, perhaps by years.

But for people who worry about the security of critical U.S. facilities, Stuxnet represented a nightmare: a dangerous computer worm that in some modified form could be used to attack an electric or telecommunications grid, an oil refinery or a water treatment facility in the United States.

"It's just a matter of time," says Michael Assante, formerly the chief security officer for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. "Stuxnet taught the world what's possible, and honestly it's a blueprint."

Further complicating the Stuxnet story is the widely held suspicion that the U.S. government, possibly in partnership with Israel, had a hand in the creation of this lethal cyberweapon, notwithstanding the likelihood that in some form it could now pose a threat to the U.S. homeland.

Training To Face A Catastrophe

The prospect of a cyberattack on U.S. infrastructure assets has prompted the Department of Homeland Security to arrange a new training program for the people who are supposed to protect the electric grid, manufacturing plants, refineries, water treatment centers and other critical facilities.

The top concern is the industrial control systems (ICS) that oversee the operation of key equipment at those facilities, from the valves to the breaker switches.

By hacking into the computer networks behind the industrial control systems, an adversary could reprogram an ICS so that it commands the equipment to operate at unsafe speeds or the valves to open when they should remain closed. This is roughly the way Stuxnet was able to damage the centrifuges in Iran.

Participants in the training program, based at the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, are taken step by step through a simulated cyber-intrusion, so they can experience firsthand how a Stuxnet-like attack on their facilities might unfold.

During an Idaho National Laboratory exercise that was staged for visiting reporters in late September, instructor Mark Fabro installs his "red" team on the second floor of the training center, with the mission of penetrating the computer network of an unsuspecting industrial company, set up on the floor below.

The trainees on the "blue" team downstairs sit in a mock control room, monitoring their computer screens for any sign of trouble.

At first, everything appears normal. The attackers have managed to take control of the computer network without the defenders even realizing it. But gradually, problems develop in the control room.

"It's running really slow," says one operator. "My network is down."

Sitting at their monitors upstairs, the attacking team is preparing to direct the computer system to issue commands to the industrial equipment.

"Take this one out," says Fabro, pointing to a configuration that identifies the power supply to the control room. "Trip it. It should be dark very soon."

Within 30 seconds, the mock control room downstairs is dark.

"This is not good," says Jeff Hahn, a cybersecurity trainer who this day is playing the role of the CEO of the industrial company under attack. The blue team is under his direction.

"Our screens are black and the lights are out. We're flying blind," Hahn says.

During the exercise, the critical industrial facility under attack is a pumping station, such as might be found in a chemical plant or water treatment center. As the operators sit helpless at their terminals, the pumps suddenly start running, commanded by some unseen hand. Before long, water is gushing into a catch basin.

"There's nothing we can do," one of the operators tells the CEO. "We can only sit here and watch it happen."

If this mock facility were an actual chemical plant, hazardous liquids could be spilling. If it were an electric utility, the turbines could be spinning out of control.

If it were a refinery, the tanks could be bursting or pipelines could be blowing up, all because the cyberattackers have been able to take over the computer network that controls the key operations.

The cyberattack scenario is all the more worrisome, because it is not clear that such attacks can be effectively stopped.

"Some of these [systems] can't be protected," says Weiss, the industrial control systems security expert. "We're going to have to figure out how to recover from events that we simply can't protect these systems from."

A U.S. Role In Stuxnet?

The challenge of managing a Stuxnet-like attack is compounded by the possibility that the U.S. government itself had a role in creating the cyberweapon.

U.S. officials were certainly aware of the ICS vulnerabilities that the Stuxnet worm ultimately exploited. An Idaho National Laboratory experiment in 2007, dubbed "Project Aurora," first demonstrated how cybercommands alone could destroy industrial equipment. Idaho lab researchers, who at the time included Michael Assante, rewrote the ICS computer code for the generator, directing the generator to destroy itself.

"When we started to conduct the test, that really robust machine couldn't take it," Assante recalls. "The coupling broke ... and you saw black smoke belching out of it."

In 2008, Idaho National Laboratory researchers performed a demonstration expanding on the Aurora experiment and their further analysis of ICS vulnerabilities. The PowerPoint briefing was prepared specifically for Siemens, the company whose equipment the Stuxnet attack targeted. One year later, the worm was introduced into Siemens ICS equipment used at a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran.

Ralph Langner, a German cybersecurity researcher who was among the first to analyze the Stuxnet code, came away convinced that it was a U.S. creation.

"To us, it was pretty clear that the development of this particular malware required resources that we only see in the United States," Langner says.

Marty Edwards, director of the Department of Homeland Security Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, based at the Idaho lab, denies any Idaho National Laboratory role in the creation of Stuxnet, and says the ICS traits the worm exploited were relatively well-known by the time it was created.

"I think it was only a matter of time before those common weaknesses or vulnerabilities were leveraged in an event such as Stuxnet," Edwards says. He would not comment on any role that other U.S. government agencies might have played in the development of the Stuxnet weapon.

That the United States has an offensive capability in the cyberwar domain is a matter of official record. Activities in that area are highly classified, but officials privately acknowledge that U.S. agencies have developed cyberweapons for offensive use.

It has also been reported that the United States has engaged previously in the sabotage of Iranian nuclear facilities. The use of Stuxnet would fit squarely within such a category.

Joel Brenner, the former inspector general at the National Security Agency, writes in his new book,America the Vulnerable, that the use of Stuxnet "would ... have been consistent with U.S. policy but not with previous U.S. methods, which avoided computer operations likely to damage others besides its intended targets."

Some observers have argued that the risk of a weapon like Stuxnet being turned against U.S. assets was so great that no U.S. government agency could logically have supported its development. But others aren't so sure.

Among them is Assante, who was among the first cybersecurity experts to warn that Stuxnet could provide a blueprint for attacks on U.S. infrastructure.

Now the president of the National Board of Information Security Examiners, Assante argues that concerns about Iran developing a nuclear weapon could have justified Stuxnet's creation.

"That is probably one of the largest national security challenges I can envision," Assante said in a recent meeting with reporters at the Idaho lab. "In that context, you can make a pretty strong argument that the benefit of using a cyberweapon to slow down or delay [a nuclear weapon program] or to achieve a specific objective might absolutely outweigh the risk."

Questions Of Information-Sharing

Given the secrecy around the U.S. offensive cyberwar capability, however, that cost-benefit analysis could only be carried out at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Moreover, it is unclear whether agencies responsible for defending the U.S. infrastructure would even be part of the deliberation.

"[The development of a cyberweapon] would probably be so highly classified that the people at DHS wouldn't even know about it," says one former intelligence official.

Such a strict compartmentalization of policymaking would raise the question of whether there is sufficient communication between the offensive and defensive teams in the cyberwar domain.

If Stuxnet was developed by U.S. cyberweapon specialists, the DHS personnel who spent a year analyzing the computer code were presumably engaged in a major duplication of effort.

But Greg Schaffer, assistant secretary of homeland security for cybersecurity and communications, says DHS officials have no complaint over coordination with U.S. agencies responsible for offensive cyber-activities.

"DHS is focused on network defense," Schaffer says. "We do get assistance from the organizations that work on the offensive mission. Whether they bring their work [to us] is something they have to decide. That is not something that we worry about."

A growing awareness of the cyberthreat to critical U.S. infrastructure assets, however, may well deepen concerns about the "blowback" risk to the U.S. homeland from the development of a potent cyberweapon designed to be used elsewhere.

The appropriate level of information-sharing between the offensive and defensive teams within the U.S. cybercommunity is likely to be the focus of intense interagency discussion.

"My sense is that there are lots of people talking about it," says Herbert Lin, chief scientist at the National Academy of Sciences and a co-editor of a book on policy, law and ethics in cyberwar. "But almost all of the discussion is going on behind closed doors."

Eventually, this could change. Whether and when the United States should use nuclear weapons or chemical weapons or land mines has been vigorously debated in public for years, and it may be only a matter of time until the use of cyberweapons gets similar attention.

[Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/]

Systempunkt

In Blitzkrieg warfare, the point of greatest emphasis is called a schwerpunkt. It is the point, often identified by lower level commanders, where the enemy line may be pierced by an explosive combination of multiple weapon systems. Once the line is pierced, armored forces dive deep into enemy territory to disrupt command, control, and logistics systems. Once these systems are disrupted, the top-heavy military units they support collapse in confusion. 

In global guerrilla warfare (a combination of open source innovation, bazaar transactions, and low tech weapons), the point of greatest emphasis is called a systempunkt. It is the point point in a system (either an infrastructure or a market), always identified by autonomous groups within the bazaar, where a swarm of small insults will cause a cascade of collapse in the targeted system. Within infrastructure, this collapse takes the form of disrupted flows that result in immediate financial loss or ongoing supply shortages. Within a market, an attack on thesystempunkt destabilizes the psychology of the market to induce severe inefficiencies and uncertainties. The ultimate objective of this activity, in aggregate, is the collapse of the target state and globalization.

[From Global Guerrillas]

Cyberattack could be our next Pearl Harbour

Appearing before the US senate, Leon Panetta, secretary of defence, warned that the US could face a cyberwarfare in the battles to come.

“The next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyber attack that cripples our power systems, our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our governmental systems,” Panetta said.

The Obama administration recently unveiled its proposal for global cybersecurity. Statements from the Pentagon have also indicated that the government will consider cyberattacks originating from foreign countries to be equivalent to acts of war meriting military response.

Who draws the line to differentiate a criminal act from a riot or a protest?

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Cybercommand

United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) is an armed forces sub-unified command subordinate to United States Strategic Command. The command is located in Fort Meade, Maryland and led by General Keith B. Alexander. USCYBERCOM centralizes command of cyberspace operations, organizes existing cyber resources and synchronizes defense of U.S. military networks.

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Cyber-Abwehrzentrum

During the first years of the 21st century, the Governments started the creation of specific centres to fight cybercrime. They realized that their utility networks were vulnerable.

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Conficker - The worm that could tackle down the Internet

The Conficker worm infected its first computer in November 2008 and within a month had infiltrated 1.5 million computers in 195 countries. Banks, telecommunications companies, and critical government networks (including the British Parliament and the French and German military) were infected. No one had ever seen anything like it. By January 2009 the worm lay hidden in at least eight million computers and the botnet of linked computers that it had created was big enough that an attack might crash the world.

El Conficker es un gusano informático que infectó el primer ordenador en Noviembre de 2008. Aprovechaba un hueco en la seguridad de Windows para instalarse en los ordenadores con este sistema operativo. En un mes se infiltró en 1,5 millones de ordenadores en 195 países. Bancos, operadores de telecomunicaciones, redes de gobiernos (como el parlamento británico, o las redes militares de Francia y Alemania) fueron infectadas. En Enero de 2009 el gusano se escondía en más de 8 millones de ordenadores. Una red de ordenadores, 'botnet' los suficientemente grande como para poder controlar y bloquear el funcionamiento de Internet a nivel mundial.

El autor Mark Bowden escribió un libro sobre Conficker en el que basándose en su rápida propagación y toma de control de 8 millones de ordenadores en el mundo, plantea la primera guerra digital mundial y cómo un grupo se organiza para bloquear su activación y eliminar el gusano de las redes mundiales.

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Stuxnet, the worm that wanted to eat Iran

In June 2010 the worm Stuxnet was discovered. It had managed to infect over 30.000 computers in Iran, being more specific company computers realted with the nuclear industry. Symantec estimates that 60% of the computers infected by Stuxnet, where placed in Iran. 

According to computer virus' experts, Stuxnet, has been developed to cause a malfunction in the industrial processes of the infected computers. One of the most sophisticated malware ever discovered. Its development  may have taken months at a really high cost. Experts think it is a worm-malware developed by a Government to achieve military objectives. 

Which Government would like to attack Iran?

Cyberwarfare

The world is getting sophisticated, largely due to the high technification levels that Humanity has developed in the last decades. One area in which mecanization stands out is warfare; from battle fields where infighting was something common, we have gone to a stadium where there are guided missiles controlled from thousand miles away, soldiers recording on-line their assaults so that, those who rule the roost, from miles away, can follow a live transmission over who falls, how they fall and therefore be able to give orders on how to continue the assault.