US Planning Response To a Cyber Attack 359
We've all heard of Google bombing; the US Government may be taking the expression rather literally. Planning is now underway across the government for the proper way to respond to a cyber attack, and options on the table include launching a cyber counterattack or even bombing the attack's source. The article makes clear that no settled plan is in place, and quotes one spokesman as saying "the preferred route would be warning the source to shut down the attack before a military response." That's assuming the source could be found. From the article: "If the United States found itself under a major cyberattack aimed at undermining the nations critical information infrastructure, the Department of Defense is prepared, based on the authority of the president, to launch a cyber counterattack or an actual bombing of an attack source."
Re:Easy response... (Score:3, Informative)
Re: Bring 'Em On (Score:4, Informative)
Hey, current thought among the Bush administration and the neocon "thinkers" that got us in to all this, is that if you blow one war you should start another one so you can try again.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Military action is unlikely to be a solution (Score:2, Informative)
Military action might be unlikely if the attacker is, say, a 15 year old kid writing trojans that let him simultaneously crash hundreds of major network hubs as some sort of "practical joke", because once found they would probably just arrest the kid and give him 20 years in federal "pound me in the ass" prison. If, on the other hand, the same thing were done by a team of Chinese black hats for the purpose of undermining our infrastructure in the moments before launching a surprise attack on Taiwan and the US fleet protecting it, a SWAT team is going to be in a little over their heads.
Re:Bombs? That's ok... (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, it'd be pointless to prosecute these people is because the vast majority of compromised machines aren't even IN any western nation. Every script kiddie knows that if you really want a bot-net, you scan Asian IP's. When I was 15 I had 2,400 Korean computers running seti@home