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ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
24July2010 7:54pmPDT
GCIS CYBER-SECURITY UPDATE: GCIS sources have informed us that critical U.S. infrastructure utility companies are being warned to keep an eye on cyber assets in case NK cyber command launches attacks.
Foreign intelligence sources claimed that similar attacks in early July 2010 against the U.S., S. Korea, and 14 other countries were traced to the activity of North Korean Military Cyber Warfare Units.
According to defensetech.org, S. Korean intelligence has obtained documents ordering North Korean army units to start the cyber attack.
Early reports described the attacks as [Distributed] Denial of Service [a.k.a."DDoS"], which essentially floods websites with internet traffic so that they are effectively taken offline. They can be relatively easy and inexpensive, using widely available hacking programs, and can be serious threats if hackers infect and tie thousands of computers together into botnets - a huge number of "zombie computers" gathered together and directed to all go to U.S. government Web sites at the exact same time. This kind of attack shuts down less secure sites due to their inability to handle the amount of traffic.
According to a report by Fox News, "these attacks were able to shut down some Web sites, but they were never able to penetrate the security systems surrounding them. By their very nature, DDoS attacks do not compromise security or steal or damage information � they simply knock Web sites offline and tie up valuable resources and manpower."
James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, claims that the disparity in vulnerabilities within government agencies, including the White House, shows that there is a need for coordinated government network defenses.
"It says that they were ready and the other guys weren't ready," he claims. "We are disorganized. In the event of an attack, some places aren't going to be able to defend themselves."�
A large-scale cyber-security simulation, "Cyber Shockwave", organized in Feb. 2010 by the the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) and utilizing the expertise of former government officials, "provided an unprecedented look at how the government would develop a real-time response to a large-scale cyber crisis affecting much of the nation." They concluded that the U.S is "unprepared for cyber threats."
[Image: www.spacewar.com]
