cyber-warfare

Security expert issues open letter to Obama

Jeff Caruso — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 12:47:10 -0500

In an open letter published in his blog, Richard Stiennon today offered his advice to Sen. Barack Obama on how best to address national cyber-security issues, should he be elected president of the United States in Tuesday's election:

Anyone in the private sector who has tried to implement change in security practices has encountered the resistance that is now in evidence within your government. Only through executive dictate can real change happen.

Read more

DARPA attempting the impossible: Self-simulation for defense training

Noah Schiffman — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:14:25 -0400

Although this news item first broke several weeks ago, I have been awaiting public analysis regarding its impracticability. Bereft of criticism, I will provide my own.

The Internet began as a "store-and-forward" packet switching network, connecting computers via Interface Message Processors. In 1969, the first interconnected network, ARPANET, allowed communication between the first four nodes located at UCLA, Stanford, UCSB and University of Utah. When the project was acquired by the Department of Defense in 1975, it became known as DARPANET (Defense Advanced Research Projects Network).

Read more

NSA holds 8th annual Cyber Defense Exercise

Noah Schiffman — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:22:07 -0400

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) Information Assurance Directorate is currently holding its 8th Annual Cyber Defense Exercise. It started on April 21^st and will be coming to a close this Thursday (04/24/08)--the day officially open for journalist's media coverage.

This annual competition, between numerous service academies, challenges student teams with the task of defending their computer networks from constant attack. However, they're not just protecting their infrastructure from automated penetration platforms. They'll be subjected to a barrage of attacks from a network offensive operations team (Red Team), composed of NSA and Department of Defense experts, during the four day hack-a-thon.

Read more

Iranian blog warfare

Adam Gaffin — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 10:22:29 -0400

Nice. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadenijad's blog server checks for IP addresses and attempts to send a Windows virus or trojan to visitors with Israeli IP numbers. Maybe that explains why it's running on IIS. More details here. An Israeli news site claims Israeli hackers managed to take the site down yesterday through a DDoS attack.

Read more