15 Minutes to Apocalypse – The Cyber Warfare Threat

When most people think of cyber warfare, they are probably thinking of a battle taking place sometime in the future. The other thought most people probably have is they think the United States as a being a leader in this area.

The truth is cyber warfare is already here and the United States is lagging far behind. Not only that but a majority of all services deemed as critical infrastructure are in the hands or under control of the private sector.

Currently 30 countries are known to have viable offensive and defensive cyber warfare capabilities with the top potential threats recognized as being Russia, China, and believe it or not North Korea, which is also the most dangerous country to have these capabilities. North Korea has already taken out systems run by the U.S. Treasury, Secret Service, and Federal Trade Commission.

Cyber warfare is a reality in today's world - Timeline of Cyber Attacks since May 2006 - which will likely be used in combination with conventional attacks and as stand alone attacks far into the future from here on.

While some point to these threats as fear mongering, unrealistic, and even as impossible to pull off I would venture to say they do not fully appreciate just how vulnerable we are should a massive attack bring down much of our infrastructure.

One thing to note about these types of attacks is the social engineering aspect, which no amount of security hardware or software can protect against. We need to better train employees to understand phishing attacks, to guard passwords, what to look and listen for during the social engineer aspect of any attack. Good security practices should incorporate continuous training with real world examples.

As the recent attacks against Google, Rackspace and others showed our private sector is just as much a target for malicious attacks. We must remain vigilant and proper training training is an important part of securing our networks.

See the Reference link below for more detailed information on this.

Google Takes New Approach with China Censorship in Response to Hacks

In response to what is being called a sophisticated cyber attack back on January 12th, Google stopped censoring searches in China by redirecting traffic to Hong Kong earlier today.

Here is the full announcement from the Official Google Blog:

A new approach to China: an update

3/22/2010 12:03:00 PM

On January 12, we announced on this blog that Google and more than twenty other U.S. companies had been the victims of a sophisticated cyber attack originating from China, and that during our investigation into these attacks we had uncovered evidence to suggest that the Gmail accounts of dozens of human rights activists connected with China were being routinely accessed by third parties, most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on their computers. We also made clear that these attacks and the surveillance they uncovered—combined with attempts over the last year to further limit free speech on the web in China including the persistent blocking of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Docs and Blogger—had led us to conclude that we could no longer continue censoring our results on Google.cn.

So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk. Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over.

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we've faced—it's entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China.

In terms of Google's wider business operations, we intend to continue R&D work in China and also to maintain a sales presence there, though the size of the sales team will obviously be partially dependent on the ability of mainland Chinese users to access Google.com.hk. Finally, we would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them. Despite all the uncertainty and difficulties they have faced since we made our announcement in January, they have continued to focus on serving our Chinese users and customers. We are immensely proud of them.

Posted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer.

China's Cyber warfare Capabilities Highlighted in Report to Congressional Commission

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission report which was produced under contract by Northrop Grumman's Information Systems Sector highlights the Cyber warfare capabilities of China.

The report also includes basic information on China's capabilities to conduct other Unconventional Warfare such as EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) attacks, using kinetic energy weapons against satellites, and its use of Laser dazzling to disable U.S. satellites.

Though the report focuses largely on China's cyber warfare capabilities, it does make the point of how the country plans to use the other means mentioned to dominate information warfare arena.

The report also mentions the collaboration between China's military and the private black-hat hacker community. This is not the first time this relationship has been written about as other reports have made mention of this relationship, and have spoken about how the Chinese hacking community feels that it is their duty to help wage this unconditional warfare.

According to the report here are some of the actual attacks through cyber warfare that have been conducted in recent years:

• In May 1998, anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia sparked a series of Chinese hacker attacks on multiple Indonesian Websites.
• Following the accidental bombing of the PRC embassy in Serbia in May 1999,
  Chinese hackers mounted their first large scale attack on the White House led
  by the group Javaphile according to one of its founding members, who uses
  the “screen name” CoolSwallow.
• The 1999 comments by then Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui that Taiwan
  deserved to be treated as an equal state by the PRC catalyzed massive PRC
  hacker attacks on the Taiwan National Assembly, Presidential Executive Office
  and many additional government Websites, according to Western press
  reports of the exchange.
• In May 2001, the Honker Union of China claimed that it had attacked over
  1,000 US Websites—approximately the same number that US hackers
  claimed they attacked in the PRC—following the collision between a US EP-3
  surveillance aircraft and a Chinese fighter.
• In 2001, following a large scale denial of service attack against the White
  House, the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party,
  issued an editorial in its online edition that decried the Chinese attacks as
  “Web terrorism,” and said that the attacks by the Honker Union of China on US
  Websites were “unforgivable acts violating the law," effectively withdrawing
  Beijing’s tacit and explicit support from the hacker groups’ campaigns.

Chinese Drywall, The Latest In Toxic Imports From China

In recent years, Chinese imports have been implicated in one safety scandal after another: lead-laced toys; toxic pet food; poisoned toothpaste and snacks; contaminated heparin and other medicines; tainted seafood and beef; defective tires and valve stems. Now add drywall to the long list of products from China causing problems.

Apparently a number of home builders in Florida were using imported drywall from China, which is causing bad odors, and corrosion in the homes.

Home owners have filed complaints and a class action lawsuit is underway citing builders for being slow to respond.

Home builders usually use domestically produced drywall made from gypsum. However in 2006, with supply shortages due to the housing boom, and rebuilding from hurricane Katrina builders started importing the product from China.

Building companies already suffering from cash and credit shortages due to the economic crisis are struggling to temporarily relocate homeowners while they test and replace drywall in homes.