By John Borland,
For years we've been hearing terrorists will soon be able to attack us through our computers, supplementing their bombs with sophisticated computer cracking.
It hasn't happened yet.
But intelligence analysts say terrorists, who have been slow to develop their computer capabilities, are finally beginning to do so. The Irish Republican Army cultivated a cell of Net-savvy members before declaring its cease-fire last year. And early in 1998, Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger guerrillas integrated minor Net weapons into their campaign against that island's government, including e-mail bombs.
U.S. policy-makers now point to the threat of foreign governments' information weapons as a more dangerous trend.
National security officials say the Chinese government has integrated computer attacks into its military strategies. Policy-makers close to the intelligence community hint that other national governments are following suit.
"Any nation that has some sophistication in information technology and interests sharply at odds with us would be a nation of concern," said Michelle Van Cleave, general counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information. "These kinds of weapons could be devastating to the U.S. if used correctly."
Is The U.S. Open To Infowar Attacks?
Net-based attacks on infrastructure facilities are increasingly viewed by the U.S. government as a critical next front in warfare and terrorist battles of the future. Using "cracking" tools and techniques, many of which are already available on public Web pages and bulletin boards, attackers could break into and disrupt network-connected facilities such as electrical power grids or telephone switching stations.
Officials from executive security agencies, as well as from Congress, have repeatedly stressed the American infrastructure needs better defenses against such attacks. A simulated cyberattack dubbed "Eligible Receiver" conducted last year by the Defense Department showed gaping holes in the nation's information-defense systems, officials said. The string of attacks on Pentagon computers by U.S and Israeli teens early this year underlined the military's weaknesses.
"A moderately sophisticated adversary can cause considerable damage with fewer than 30 people and a nominal amount of money if the systems they are attacking are not adequately protected and defended," National Security Agency director Kenneth Minihan told Congress in June.
Minihan distinguished between the one-off attacks of individual crackers and the growing potential for coordinated or structured attacks by parties bent on doing more serious damage.
"These adversaries have all-source intelligence support, extensive funding, organized professional support, and long-term goals," he said, underscoring the need for better information and defense systems. "We have no indication how many of the attacks we experience may actually be structured attacks. Nonetheless, it is clear from the information we have that we face increasing numbers of more sophisticated adversaries."
Governments have been the quickest to realize the potential of cyberweapons, intelligence officials say. The Chinese government has talked about the possibility of attacking financial systems since at least mid-decade, and incorporated "computer warfare" into a 1997 military-exercise scenario, Minihan said.
In the long run, policy-makers are more concerned about these foreign countries than about individual terrorist groups' use of Net-based attacks, Van Cleave said.
"Certainly the tools and techniques that a terrorist might employ are publicly available on the Net," she said. "But most terrorists still tend to look at more physical weapons. The more serious concern might be foreign adversary governments' use of these weapons."
When Terrorists Get The Net
As governments develop their own information-attack capabilities, this knowledge is likely to reach terrorist hands eventually, some analysts say. So far, terrorist organizations' use of computers for genuine information attacks has been rudimentary, progressing little beyond the harassment of e-mail bombs, analysts say.
"As of right now, there is no terrorist organization that we know of with the necessary skills," said William Church, managing director of the San Francisco-based Centre for Infrastructural Warfare Studies (CIWARS). Church's group advises governments in Latin America, Asia, and Europe on threats and vulnerabilities in national infrastructures, and publishes the biweekly Journal of Infrastructural Warfare.
"Weapons proliferate from states to terrorists," Church said. "It's coming. It's slowly creeping up on us."
The long-predicted meshing of genuine terrorist groups with computer attack skills has begun, if still in relatively harmless arenas. Church's group has tracked reports of computer and Net use by terrorist organizations, and has come up with only a few minor instances of use, including the uses by the IRA and the Tamil Tigers cited above.
Most terrorist organizations still lack members with the relevant background, Church said. This has slowed the spread of terrorist-sponsored cracking attacks, and will likely continue to be a barrier.
"The whole concept of a terrorist hiring a hacker is absurd," Church said. Terrorist groups tend to be organized in tight cells, in which members know and trust one another, he said. Hiring an outside computer expert who doesn't share the group's political beliefs or national ties could pose a threat to internal secrecy.
Information weapons have other drawbacks, Church added. Cyberattacks on a national power grid or communications infrastructure can be crippling in theory, but the weapons have yet to be proven. A physical attack like the recent bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania still provide a more predictable visceral impact.
"Most of the terrorist threats still use physical weapons," Church said. "When you're a terrorist and you get one shot at something, you want to make sure it works."
The U.S. defense and law-enforcement community is still in the process of preparing for Net-based attacks. A newly created Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office will release a plan in November for coordinating U.S. agency responses. The FBI also is putting together its own National Infrastructure Protection Center, which will respond to individual attacks.
But Congress, along with individuals like Minihan, continues to press the administration to come up with a more detailed defense plan.
"We haven't seen the building of a national infrastructure to pick up the early signs of a strategic attack," Van Cleave said. A system for linking early indications of attacks with overseas intelligence reports is necessary for separating genuine dangers from everyday, isolated Net attacks, she said.
"That's hard to do," Van Cleave added. "But we need a plan to get there from where we are today, which is nowhere."
Coming Wednesday: TechWeb Internet interviews CIWARS managing director William Church on terrorists' slow move toward infoweapons.
Try TechWeb's RSS Feed!ISIS Papyrus America seeking Software Pre-Sales Analyst in Southlake, TX
Agilent Technologies seeking Business Manager in Bangalore, IN
Covidien seeking Principal Validation Test in Boulder, CO
T-Mobile seeking Unified Subscriber Database Engr in Bellevue, WA
20th Century Fox seeking Sr. Production Software Engineer in Los Angeles, CA
For more great jobs, career-related news, features and services, please visit our Career Center.
TechWeb's FREE e-mail newsletters deliver the news you need to come out on top.
Get definitions for more than 20,000 IT terms.
Editorial and vendor perspectives
