Is There a Cyberwar, and Is the US Losing It? 320
kenblakely writes "BusinessWeek is running a story asserting that the 'US
is Losing the Global Cyberwar.' This whole
cyberwar thing has been discussed a few times on Slashdot where the Chinese are asserted to be using
cyberwarfare to attain military superiority. And, of course, there is
the whole Russia-Georgia thing. Even
the US military is getting in on the action, and the fear
of a cyber
Pearl Harbor seems almost palpable. I'm curious
what the Slashdot crowd thinks about the growing fascination with 'cyberwar':
hype to get more money and create new force structure, source of the next
world war, or somewhere in between?"
Not enough information to know. (Score:2, Interesting)
All that we hear about in the US media is information that the US government wants to release in a round-a-bout fashion, to let the "attackers" know they have been "seen."
So..:
1) We don't know what the US (or anyone aligned with them) is doing for offense - if there is any
2) feeding (1) is that the targets are governments that thrive on secrecy rather than are answerable and open, thus won't say
3) Maybe the targets of US cyberattacks don't know they've been attacked.
Bombs.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can the Chinese traceroute laser guided bombs away from their datacenters? The people with the most bombs usually win...
And re: Chinese investments in the U.S. - should China go to war with us, they will be screwed...all the paper debt they've created with the United States will become a clean slate; thanks for the free money suckers!
This is nothing new (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Cyberwar? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately the word "Cyberwar", when used by non-technical news companies, is often used to (wrongly) imply organized big scale attacks, as if its a military style war/attack. Its far more likely just mostly isolated young (and/or misguided older) hackers on all sides, having a go at hacking/annoying the opposing sides. Not much different from kids throwing stones at the other side, just the 21st century version of it.
But then we live in a time of media organized waves of ever more fear and paranoid, so things get blown up out of all proportion by them, (for their own gain). BusinessWeek is just playing along to the common theme of selling a story of fear and paranoid, to get peoples attention. Sadly this marketing/PR tactic works. Now people are discussing Cyberwar and in the process BusinessWeek is gaining greater attention. Its not about Cyberwar, its about BusinessWeek's need for attention.
I wish companies would stop playing this fear manipulation game, to get attention. But then I guess all the time this method works, they will keep exploiting it, for their own gain
Re:Bombs.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Go to war with the US? Are you nuts? The Chinese are doing to the US what the "western world" has been doing to Africa for decades if not centuries.
You know what the economic side of colonialism was about? Finding a place to dump your manufactured goods on to gain "legal" access to their resources. You like our trinkets, clothing and other crap? Fine, no problem, you underdeveloped hicks, can't make it yourself, but no problem, we sell our surplus to you. We actually make what you need, but you gotta pay for it. Ya know, your ore, your oil, what little foreign money you have. We buying from you? Don't be ridiculous. Well, you could start planting some bananas or pineapples that don't grow at home, but we tell you at what price you sell.
Is it me or did this turn around?
Sure, the reasons are different. It's not like we couldn't produce that junk. But it would be more expensive. And we want our junk CHEAPLY.
We have to. It's not like we have too many well paying jobs left over here that would enable us to pay more for our junk.
Re:let me get thsi straight (Score:3, Interesting)
Right, and while the number of CS majors are going down [slashdot.org], we are busy expanding "game design [slashdot.org]" opportunities. I would say something like "this is the way the world ends" but that was already used on a FPP today.
Re:Cyberwar? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, BusinessWeek is being pulled into a very interesting game. There is a *ton* of posturing and jockeying for attention going on with the incoming administration (primary example is the DoD compromise story...how many versions of that story came out?). These stories are aimed at getting the transition teams to say "hey, yeah, that team/project/agency over there really does need more funding."
Re:It's not a binary either/or (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, the Chinese military has decided exactly this, and it's been in Chinese doctrine for a decade. It's clear in Chinese military publications, and even a cursory literature review of Chinese journals finds a consistent message: China can defeat superior enemies by utilizing information warfare against information dependent-states, particularly the United States, and it must have a diligent, long-term view to do it successfully.
If China spends 15 years shaping American public opinion -- including that of politicians in power, or who come to power -- that military conflict with China must be avoided at all costs, even in a scenario where China invades Taiwan, has the goal not been accomplished? If China is able to temporarily blind US command and control to give it enough time to become entrenched in a symbolic region, has the goal not been accomplished?
China believes it, and China has embraced the idea of using principles of information warfare -- from long-term PSYOP, to public relations, to coordinated computer attack, to "useful idiots" without any government affiliation doing the Party's bidding for the "good of China" -- to skip the full extent of the costly and painful military-industrial modernization it would take to counter an adversary like the US in a conventional war.
Re:troll flamebait (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, we've been in a long standing economic war. We don't even notice it. You know how many countries the US has a trade embargo with, and tries to convince other countries to follow suit? Of course, if you cut of a country from a sizable market, it gets into troubles.
Thinking about it, a lot of international politics of the US in the latter half of the 20th century had a bit of warfare. We just don't notice it that much. Replacing Allende with Pinochet, because the former dared to kick foreign investors out of his country, surely wasn't such a nice move. And inciting Saddam to start a war in the middle east because some Ayatollah kicked their buddy's butt wasn't so nice either. Neither was later using him as a scapegoat whenever something went wrong internally.
But hey, that's politics. Is it war? Well, not in the way that we'd think of, but to some degree it was. The US were just clever enough to find someone stupid enough to do the dirty work for them.
Back on topic, is that now war? Well, certainly not in the usual kind. Maybe it's just another form of foreign politics, and the US are just pissed that now someone else is doing it to them instead of them pulling the strings.
Re:Cyberwar? (Score:3, Interesting)
Or it could be that the Russians and Chinese are actually attacking our military infrastructure and something needs to be done. It's a bit "convenient" than both Russia and China seem to do such a crappy job of shutting down crackers that are operating from within their own borders.
And it is indeed potentially very troubling. Imagine the kind of havoc that could be unleashed if a non-nuclear state could get our plans or the Russians could get plans for our missile defense systems. Or any other combination of state and technology or intelligence.
It is indeed a very serious problem, and this isn't like a few years back when it was "ZOMG Muslims!" either, this is an actual problem that's going to have to be fixed.
Conflict, not war (Score:1, Interesting)
The important point may be for eveyone to remember that sovereign powers are very real, even in cyberspace. If they start extending real warfare into the Internet, then it will be bad for everyone's business.
Not a cyberwar, and not new (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not a cyberwar, it's government espionage. It's been done for as long as there have been governments, including the US going after nuclear and rocket scientist from Germany, and spying between the US and Russia during the cold war. Trying to steal government secrets that happen to be on a computer is nothing new. Covering your tracks, and maybe setting the other government back a bit in their research is normal. The US is almost certainly doing this today to all kinds of other countries. What did you think the NSA and CIA were doing before the war on terror started?
If this was an actual war, the foreign governments would be trying to destroy the US infrastructure via remote computer access. Open a few valves to flood our water supply with raw sewage, bring down the power grid in California, shutdown air traffic control, turn all stop lights to 4 way green during rush hour, etc. And major governments in the world just don't have an incentive to do this. China is already feeling the pain of owning too much US debt during our financial crisis and has seen their economy suffer as our imports slow. Africa keeps looking for foreign aid, India needs our outsourcing, and the middle east wants to sell us oil. Seeing how a housing bubble in the US has turned into a global recession, an organized government would be shooting themselves in the foot to start a war against the US now.
The exceptions to this would be Russia, and non-government affiliated terrorist groups (Al-Qaeda). Though Russia, like Brazil, is more talk than action. The risk with them is more from organized crime using computer bot-nets to profit from illegal activities.
Re:Cyberwar? (Score:3, Interesting)
Misinformation is a major issue and major problem, as its constantly highlighting how distorted some aspects of the news is becoming. This Cyberwar story is a good example. We are not being feed the whole truth by the media. They are distorting the news, for their own gain. Media misinformation is a very big problem in itself.
Information war, not "cyberwar" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Idiotic (Score:3, Interesting)
If you want me to believe that a real cyberwar (in this case more aptly named "computer espionage") is up and going you better give me or assure me that you have some sort of evidence (like captured transmissions showing that the attackers know what they are looking for in terms of intercepted/exfiltrated data) showing that you're actually being attacked by foreign governments or skilled people with an actual terrorist agenda. There is nothing in TFA except buzzwords, hyperbole and "x declined to comment".
Actually, if you check out some of the linked articles [businessweek.com], you'll see that reporters have reviewed documents outlining the attacks. There is certainly assurance that these things are going on.
I've participated in some of the investigations mentioned in that article. I have a pretty good familiarity with how particular attacks happened and what information was transferred and to where (or at least the first hop). And nothing I read in that article counters the facts that I have first-hand knowledge on.
Having said that - I don't know it all. I know how data was handled and where it was handed off to. I don't know who was on the other end (or how many additional hops were involved after that first one). But I also do know that these attacks are really unlike many past "skiddie" (and even more sophisticated) attacks seen in the past. For one thing - the amount of data being transferred is something very new.
Re:Espionage (Score:1, Interesting)
the US would make an announcement that China should stop messing about if they know what's good for them.
You appear to be ignorant of the power the US wields at this point. The US has done some saber rattling in the recent past and China has responded with "Okay. fine. We'd like you to start repaying those loans in Euros please...". We STFU rather quickly (I believe this was in response to increased tariffs on Chinese autos for US sale).
As for Cyberwar vs "Usual Espionage" - stealing money from civilians isn't Usual Espionage. Divisions of the Chinese military related to Titan Rain have been attacking (for profit) education, pharmaceutical, aerospace, automotive and other industries for the last 7 years (that we are aware of) and robbing us blind. This is, militarily, no different from pillaging.. funding future attacks with the spoils of the current one.
As for a military response to the Chinese - they have nuclear capabilities, an active space program, aircraft carriers, submarines and a standing army with more members than the US has citizens. However you want to fight it, they can compete in direct confrontation. And if there is no viable method of defending ourselves from Spear-Fishing attacks, trojans and malware embedded in the chips we integrate into our electronics.. well, we should just be nice and compliant with our new Chinese overlords.
economic warfare (Score:2, Interesting)
It's economic warfare.
Free (and semi-free) markets will be at disadvantage until they get their collective heads out of the sands. Eventually though, you can take heart in that it will devolve into conglomerates fighting amongst themselves, and the remaining nation-states will be mostly just bystanders getting caught in the crossfire.
Are we there yet?
Bot vs. Bot? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you DDOS me, I will DDOS you!
We just need 300 Spartans to man the bottleneck link between here and China.
The Best Defense.... (Score:1, Interesting)
The Best Defense is achieved by learning and understanding the Best Offense. Case in point: If you learn how to exploit Apache you will learn how to secure Apache.
Re:Idiotic (Score:3, Interesting)
The attack described in that article is obviously a professional targeted heist, especially considering the 0day.
Keep in mind that there are numerous attacks described in the series of articles. I don't know about all of them. And I can't comment in detail as I'd prefer to keep my career intact (which is the nature of this stuff and why its so suspect - how can you verify if you can't review?).
Just out of curiosity, how was the attack discovered? It should be quite possible to pull off that kind of attack without discovery even considering the spamming (injecting rookits with steganographic connect-back using dual-stage shellcode and making the website look like harmless viagra spam, assuming that the "unknown vulnerability" is a normal client memory corruption class of vuln). How do you know more subtle attacks aren't passing under your radar?
The attackers that I've investigated are pretty good at remaining undetected. Most of what they're doing blends well with daily patterns. However, a particularly alert individual noted something amiss, investigated, and found something that wasn't normal. Because they had a good relationship with the Infosec group, it got reported early. The Infosec group then started back tracking access through multiple systems until the initial breach was deturmined (as well as a lot of information on what the attacker(s) were doing).
How many subtle attacks are passing under the radar? Who can say. Before this particular incident, the concept was often discussed and various things were being worked on to try and solve the issue. We didn't know for sure that there WAS something going on - but we were asking ourselves "what if" and trying to figure out what tactics and tools we could use to figure it out. Those projects helped make the job of tracking the intruders easier once we understood what there WAS an intruder and some hint at what to look for. But ultimately, it was one individual who tipped us off.
One side comment to all this - its all about people. Good people. They're the ones that tend to catch this stuff. They're the ones who also manage to stop it (how often is hard to quantify). But so often I've seen really great people disappear in to the ether because of the beurocracies managing these environments. The US Government needs to figure out how to not only attract good people - but how to retain them as well. That's going to be really difficult for the Government to do as the very nature of these agencies tends to squander good people.
War justifies the reduction in liberty (Score:3, Interesting)
If there is a war they can do what they like.
Re:Espionage (Score:1, Interesting)
How can it be "secure" if it's connected to the internet?
And yeah, if I lost 30Gb of critical data, I will announce it to the world.
More likely, it's 29Gb of common knowledge and 1Gb of disinformation. If it's data, someone will lose valuable time and energy to evaluate and distinguish the "value" from the "garbage".
The data might contain something like our mathematical model for derivatives and our secret formula for creating cold fusion. You go ahead and verify our math and our fomula...