Four Threats For '09 You Haven't Heard of

ancientribe writes "Security experts are cautiously on the lookout for some lesser-known but potentially lethal threats that could be more difficult to prepare for and defend against in 2009. These aren't your typical enterprise hack attacks. They're mainly large-scale Internet threats — attacks that knock out sections of the Internet infrastructure, radical extremist hackers, Web attacks that adversely affect online ad revenue, and even the unthinkable: human casualties as a result of a cyberattack." Also known as the new group of things the fear mongers will use to make you do their bidding.

Sorry

[by Anonymous Coward]

But we've heard of them all. What about that super volcano in Yellowstone? Now that is something that no one has heard of and it would be cool if Slashdot posted an article about that.

Screw that

[djupedal (584558)]

...forget the 'un-. What say we start looking out for some of the thinkable, such as the cables that keep getting slashed in the Med, eh?

Only if it is an iVolcano.

[khasim (1285)]

From TFA:
e-bomb
Middle Eastern cybercartels

And so forth. Lots of technobabble, not much factual information.

Re:How to Falsify Evolution

[by Anonymous Coward]

Stop talking. Please. You're going to kill us all.

Re:How to Falsify Evolution

[Alarindris (1253418)]

No! He needs to keep typing at 55 WPM to prevent the bomH9^%$^}NO CARRIER

Re:How to Falsify Evolution

[Slightly Askew (638918)]

And being herded into endless Hotel Miramars and Bellvueses and Continentales with their modern international luxury roomettes and draught Red Barrel and swimming pools full of fat German businessmen pretending they're acrobats forming pyramids and frightening the children and barging into queues and if you're not at your table spot on seven you miss the bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, the first item on the menu of International Cuisine, and every Thursday night the hotel has a bloody cabaret in the bar, featuring a tiny emaciated dago with nine-inch hips and some bloated fat tart with her hair brylcreemed down and a big arse presenting Flamenco for Foreigners.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Recommendation: more tinfoil, less coffee.

Re:How to Falsify Evolution

[mlwmohawk (801821)]

Because of your post, I think we need a "Billy Madison" moderation.

What you wrote wasn't flamebait or over rated, it was stupid.

"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

I just had to point out a couple things, sorry

[mlwmohawk (801821)]

Any theory that does not provide a method to falsify and validate its claims is a useless theory.

In real science we state claims and provide proof and theory as to why we accept them as true. Furthermore, we make predictions that can be tested. In science, nothing is "disproved," all things are assumed false until proved. Its make more sense that way as I can not disprove your watermellon claim, but you have offered no theory or proof as to why your claims should be believed in the first place.

I could claim anything and you would be foolish to believe. If I make a claim and provide proof and a theory to explain why it is so, and you check out the proof, you have the ability to prove or disprove it on your own.

Re:

[mlwmohawk (801821)]

Ever heard of Karl Popper? I didn't think so.

It is usually a mistake to assume something about a person whom you've never met.

In short, you CANNOT "prove" a scientific theory. There is a fundamental logical problem with the very idea: We make predictions, and sometimes the predictions come true.......snip

You are confused about what Popper's theory really was. He acknowledged that in small well bounded cases that prediction was possible, but in larger unbounded problems, it was probably impossible due to all

"The Unthinkable"

[Knara (9377)]

Why is "human causalities as the result of cyberattack" supposedly unthinkable?

Re:"The Unthinkable"

[spazdor (902907)]

I tried to formulate a response to your question but my mind just won't go there. I'm having trouble figuring out why.

Re:"The Unthinkable"

[SBrach (1073190)]

Maybe you're already a casualty?

Re:"The Unthinkable"

[betterunixthanunix (980855)]

People often forget that many real world, physical system have internet connections, and therefore many people cannot even fathom the idea of a cyberattack resulting in human death. I read about a hack a few years ago that nearly resulting in a man being shot and killed by a SWAT team: somebody had spoofed the phone system and issued a call to 911 indicating that he was holding a family hostage, and the SWAT team arrived and very nearly shot the father in that house. The kid who executed the hack never even considered the possibility that a SWAT team with automatic weapons might actually fire their guns during the confusion (or so he said when he was arrested by the FBI). TFA indicates that a malware attack hit a UK hospital and shut down the computer systems, forcing doctors and nurses to search for paper records.

Re:

[enharmonix (988983)]

Why is "human causalities as the result of cyberattack" supposedly unthinkable?

It's unthinkable the way physically bombing a hospital is unthinkable. It doesn't mean somebody might not think to do it, just that you have to question the perpetrator's humanity if they were to actually go through with it.

Wiktionary definition: incapable of being believed; incredible; inconceivable or unimaginable; extremely improbable in a way that goes against common sense

(Of course, if you are using the same definition I am and are still asking that question, I believe that makes you a sociopath...)

Re:

[Myrddin Wyllt (1188671)]

It's unthinkable the way physically bombing a hospital is unthinkable. It doesn't mean somebody might not think to do it, just that you have to question the perpetrator's humanity if they were to actually go through with it.

How right you are. [guardian.co.uk]

Re:

[enharmonix (988983)]

But then again, cyberattacks are of a completely different nature than bombing a hospital.+Ã

Don't read too much into my original statement, now! My point was just to define how it was unthinkable, not to try to equate two very different kinds of attack.

The one danger of malware and viruses, is that they can really get out of hand. Call me alarmist, but i think there are more chances of critical equipment of an hospital causing deaths because of a malware attack that got out of hand (you really dont know how much USB thumbdrives get into places they shouldnt), than say a terrorist bombing the place a-là Joker.

This is a very realistic scenario, but I wouldn't consider it an attack; the word epidemic comes to mind. The idea of malware going haywire, though, is hardly "unthinkable," so I agree with you there.

Note that the article did describe exactly this scenario as an attack, so perhaps they have a different definition of "unthinkable" than I do.

PS: Why the hell is the preview function so goddamn slow!

I dunn

Re:

[plover (150551)]

"He didn't fall? Inconceivable!"

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Re:

[Brandybuck (704397)]

It's unthinkable because the IT industry as a whole seems incapable of comprehending the possibility of such an attack. Cities are installing muni-wifis without encryption, military branches are standardizing on Windows, commercial broadband routers/modems continue to be shipped with security off by default, etc.

Re:

[rev_sanchez (691443)]

I'm pretty sure this is the plot for nearly every movie involving hackers. I'd say that it's overly thinkable.

Re:

[Torodung (31985)]

Because it has been proven beyond a shadow of doubt that the "cyberworld" literally can't impinge upon "real life."

There is a time-tested firewall (of lack of imagination) between the two. For instance: This message I've posted cannot affect "real life" in any way, shape, or form. ;^)

--
Toro

Re:

[Thelasko (1196535)]

Why is "human causalities as the result of cyberattack" supposedly unthinkable?

I think it should be [wikipedia.org] clear [wikipedia.org] by now that our government officials have never seen any of the Terminator [wikipedia.org] movies.

Re:

[Thelasko (1196535)]

I think it should be clear by now that our government officials have never seen any of the Terminator movies.

Even Governor Schwarzenegger?

Re:"The Unthinkable"

[SnarfASnack (1443633)]

He's seen it, he just didn't get it.

human casualties as a result of a cyberattack ..

[rs232 (849320)]

'Three U.K. hospitals were forced to shut down their networks last month after a malware outbreak infiltrated their systems .. Prince says he worries that eventually, human lives could be affected by a cyberattack like that of those hospitals or attacks on national infrastructures such as utilities. "It will happen at some point," he says'

Have these security professionals ever considered using computers that don't get malware ?

Anti-virus, Anti-phishing, Spyware [perimeterusa.com]

Re:

[TheRealMindChild (743925)]

In the scheme of things, while windows malware (I assume this is what you speak of) is an easy vector, it isn't the only vector. Plain and simple fact is, not everyone who uses a computer is competent, even when they should be (The same goes for car mechanics, doctors, etc).

Here is a really easy way to root a few Unix(like) boxes. Scan for some FTP servers. Log in and spider the directories. Can you make a file that has the executable bit set? Great! Do some fingerprinting to figure out what OS it is (this

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

Last time i checked FTP didn't have an EXEC method.

I'm guessing you mean pray it has a directory inside a website (then why bother fingerprinting the OS) or you have shell access which just brings up the question of why you bothered ftping a file in the first place your more than halfway there!!

Re:human casualties as a result of a cyberattack .

[betterunixthanunix (980855)]

That may not be as simple as it sounds. Sure, it is technologically feasible to lock down a computer system, but there are matters of money and politics to consider. Consider the expense of hiring a full time security team that can tune ACLs and security policies and monitor the hospital network for intrusions. Here in America, hospitals, especially public hospitals, often have to fight for every dollar just to afford medical equipment, and there is constant political wrangling about paying for healthcare. Investing millions of dollars per hospital to create a secure IT infrastructure is a difficult move to justify when you are engaged in a battle for money for other equipment, and a lot of people either do not understand or do not care about the risks patients face from IT failures.

There is also the matter of commercialization of healthcare software. Gone are the days when a hospital's IT staff would roll their own middle tier and front end systems -- healthcare software systems are now purchased from companies that "specialize" in such products. Those companies often market proprietary software, compile it for the world's most popular desktop OS, and send shrink-wrapped copies to hospitals. That software can force choices upon the hospital, like requiring a certain database that only runs on a certain server OS or preventing certain ACLs from being in place because of the manner in which the software utilizes system resources. It is neither malice nor incompetence, it is just a byproduct of the system we have in place for managing our healthcare centers.

Personally, I have never understood how utilities might wind up in a situation where their systems may be vulnerable to a malware attack. I would think that the critical systems in utilities would be offline and running some sort of highly application-specific software, but I could be wrong.

Re:human casualties as a result of a cyberattack .

[Gordo_1 (256312)]

It's not that simple. You forgot about embedded systems. For example, a few years ago as an employee of a security software company, I had a conversation with the head of IT at one of the largest healthcare providers in the U.S. The conversation went something like this (I'm paraphrasing):

Him: We have a had a heck of a time dealing with systems ping-ponging the Blaster worm at each other. Rebooting them fixes the problem temporarily, but eventually they just get reinfected.

Me: Sounds pretty straight forward, we can help you remove malware from infected systems.

Him: Well, a lot of our "Windows systems" are actually portable medical devices like kidney dialysis, heart monitors and life support machines running embedded Windows NT. They are built by the manufacturer with a particular software load and certified by the Department of Health. I can't change so much as a registry key on them or they will no longer be certified for use in a hospital.

Me: So let me get this straight, you're saying that you have life support systems that are infected with worms and you can't disinfect them because the procedure would make the life support system less safe than it is with active malware on it?

Him: Beyond rebooting and using external firewalls to block worm packets, my hands are tied so long as the system continues to perform its primary function.

Me: Have you considered just disconnecting them from the network?

Him: No can do. We need to monitor status and administer remotely.

Now, I'm not saying that this situation is still true today or even that it was representative of the state of the healthcare industry at the time, but I find it highly believable that a virus/malware/worm outbreak somewhere *has* had an impact on someone's life.

Re:

[segra (867730)]

so who certified the malware ??

The One that REALLY has me scared...

[Cornwallis (1188489)]

The new self-parking Ford to be powered by Microsoft Sync!

Another security threat is....

[Seakip18 (1106315)]

Reader's clicking on infected links because they're articles are so full of ads, they can't tell where the "Next Page" link is anymore.

My solution is thus. [darkreading.com]

I think the biggest threat is our own idiocy, rather than some ominous force.

The greatest threats to the internet

[dpilot (134227)]

are government and corporate interests that don't like the "leveling" effects of the internet. In eventual effect, how different is a DDOS attack from a Great Firewall. (not necessarily "of China") I know DDOS and filtering have different immediate effects, but I'm thinking of the social and political utility here, as well.

Unlikely

[Crudely_Indecent (739699)]

the unthinkable: human casualties as a result of a cyberattack.

My daughter tries to play this card. She says "If I can't get on myspace and talk to my friends, I'll just die." (She never dies)

Sounds like a sales job to me.

[Samschnooks (1415697)]

One U.S. hospital was recently hit with a denial-of-service attack that knocked its critical services offline temporarily. "There have been several close calls" including that one, notes Perimeter eSecurity's Prince, who couldn't reveal details about the attack on the hospital. Prince says the hospital was able to deploy some redundant power sources to keep its operations going during the attack on its network. But Prince says he worries that eventually, human lives could be affected by a cyberattack like that of those hospitals or attacks on national infrastructures such as utilities. "It will happen at some point," he says.

Of course you do. Got to keep those customers coming in.

The hospital I'm familiar with has an internal LAN with the Life or Death systems on it. The Docs that have access to it go through their gateway. In other words, a DOS attack would keep folks from seeing the hospital's website that has their marketing stuff, job listings, location, etc... nothing that would kill anyone.

See, the IT folks there are actually pretty smart and read the security journals and some even come from defense contractors. Imagine that. This hyperbole is just a PR statement to get the suits and their lawyers all worked up to hire people like that for very large fees.

Re:

[betterunixthanunix (980855)]

A malware attack on a hospital may very well affect life-or-death systems, if it is carried into the hospital on a USB key. Some doctor is reviewing patient records, brings it all home on his USB key for some reason, and brings that key back into the office -- now the malware is inside, on that internal LAN. It may not infect the life critical systems, but it may clog the network and prevent those hosts from communicating with whatever other systems they need to communicate with. My hope would be that th

Re:

[plover (150551)]

Actually, it probably wasn't as expensive as you might think. Hang Wi-Fi access points around the place and let those get to the "untrustworthy" network. Use the physical Ethernet jacks installed 10 years ago to access the critical network. Pile the rules into the routers to permit only the business ports to and from the business machines. And set IDS systems to keep watch for suspicious traffic there, too.

If data transfer to and from the critical network is a requirement, such as exchanging X-rays w

Those aren't attacks

[PingXao (153057)]

First and foremost they're someone's push to get a .gov contract. Second, the scenarios outlined represent sensationalized what-if's that, if they ever happened, would be just as much the responsibility of the people who got hacked. You just can't put things on the internet and expect them to be secure. You can't. If you do, you're an idiot and you deserve to lose your job, get sued, and even go to prison for monumental stupidity.

Need to stop treating computer crime as separate

[by Anonymous Coward]

There is precious little new in this story, just a little present-day Nostradamus mixed in with a conspiracy theory, alarmism, and an admission that the enemies of the western world are not stupid and know how to use computers.

If we want to go beyond panic stories, we have to start treating such attacks, any attacks, as real crimes. That means FBI needs to get involved, and there must be a serious effort at apprehension. Once apprehended, those folks must be treated like criminals, that means orange jumpsuites (not three-piece suites) and long prison terms. This must be publicized.

As far as foreign threats, we need to work with local authorities. If those actitivites are conducted from within war zones, they need to be treated as enemy saboteurs and shot.

It's time to stop distinguishing between "computer crime" and regular crime. The consequences are the same, the victims are the same, the costs are the same. Therefore, the penalties must also be the same.

Mytob?

[jav1231 (539129)]

Okay so Mytob shuts down a hospital. Frankly, hospitals and other public health entities shouldn't be running Windows. It's vulnerable and proven so time and again. Had they been on any *NIX-based system the spread of such a worm would have been mitigated.

I know, a tired old point but I'm frankly sick of hearing about government entities and public works entities being brought down because they've bought into the Windows-everywhere philosophy.

Re:

[rev_sanchez (691443)]

In modern health care IT systems you have multiple pieces of fairly complicated software generally coming from 1/2 a dozen vendors or so and a user population that is not that technically savvy but is familiar with Windows. Those vendors won't retool their software for market share that currently doesn't exist. It's easy to say that they should use something that isn't as susceptible to malware but that's the only part that's easy.

What is WITH the BGP issue?

[GPLDAN (732269)]

Here is a quote from the article:

David Maynor, CTO with Errata Security, says '09 could be the year when the first large-scale and widespread attack occurs on the Internet's infrastructure. "I think with the [hacking] work being done on Cisco and routing gear in general we'll see the first wide-scale 'e-bomb' that will break peering between ISPs and make large portions of the Internet unreachable," Maynor says.

Obama's IT security plan (seen here: http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/081208_securingcy [csis.org]

Pathetic.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus (1223518)]

Even by the (low) standards of fear-mongering this is utter drivel. Pop-up blockers are an apocalyptic threat to the internet now?

classic transferance

[petes_PoV (912422)]

This sounds like the "normal" threats that governments have been telling us all to be scared of for years. All this bunch have done is put an internet "spin" on them.

• e-bombs? yeah - right

• extremists: (yawn!)

• economic downturn: puh-leeze

• casualties: huh?

Now, I'm all for taking sensible precautions, such as keeping my wallet in an inside pocket and locking the house before going out. However, I refuse to be bullied into changing my lifestyle just in case the one-in-a-billion chance that something bad, but fores

Same ppl that say Linux virus everywhere?

[WindBourne (631190)]

It seems like for the last decade, that security ppl scream that Linux virus are everywhere. I am guessing that they are now screaming the same for new items.

Oh noes muslims with computers!

[thetoadwarrior (1268702)]

The biggest threat facing the internet in 2009 is pointless scaremongering laid out on more pages than it should be to get more ad revenue.

Anchors....

[cbiltcliffe (186293)]

They're mainly large-scale Internet threats â" attacks that knock out sections of the Internet infrastructure,

Otherwise known as "anchors".....

This item would not be such a bad thing.

[Aram Fingal (576822)]

From TFA:

One casualty of the jump in Web attacks and threats could be Internet ads, as enterprises and users increasingly begin to deploy technologies that block third-party content.

Third-party content is ultimately not necessary for web ads. Advertisers could submit ads to be published by the sites themselves the way it's done in every other form of media. I suppose that there is some convenience in just serving ads from a third party but is that really worth the security and privacy costs? The main point of third-party content is to track users. Again, this isn't necessary. It's only done because one advertising agency is at a disadvantage if they don't do it while their competitors do. I realy don't see any great benefit to society from advertisers being able to profile people and deliver more and more targeted ads to them. Certainly, for my part, I don't think it's worth the loss of privacy and I've been blocking some kinds of third-party content for years because of it.

Bigger Fish.....

[IHC Navistar (967161)]

Even bigger threats:

1) Undersea cable cuts

2) Hub Power Outages

3) Botnets

Seeing as how *no* skills are required to execute the first two of the aforementioned items, I'd say that those are the biggest things to watch out for.

I tagged this story "fnord"

[FiloEleven (602040)]

but it doesn't seem to show up...