Cont.
CyberTerrorists: Who, Where, and Why?
The purpose of this paper is to help you understand the threats
that exist, and hopefully, to help you prevent these types of
atrocities. But know this - there are people out there with very
different goals, who are our real threats, and who are, or will be,
attacking us. Make no mistake, the threats are real, today.
Who are the CyberTerrorists? There a great many poor movies and too
many works of fiction about the hacker and cracker communities. In
the popular media, there recently was the Kevin Mitnick incident,
where one cracker broke into another cracker's systems. This
spawned endless press and at least two best selling books. While
this incident received much attention, the events amounted to
meaningless children's games.
By and large, the cracker community, based primarily in the United
States, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and in the nations of the
former Soviet Union, is composed of individuals who see the
cracking process merely as a challenge, a brain teaser, a puzzle.
They view themselves as not only being innocent of any crime, but
perhaps even doing something righteous, something to counter the
dark monoliths of the corporate and government worlds. They believe
they are being persecuted. These individuals believe that what they
are doing is not doing any true damage. At its least harmful, these
crackers just look at information. However, privacy issues and
military secrecy can render such infiltrations acts of
terror.
Sometimes crackers make minor changes, just for fun, to be
annoying, or to make a statement. The potential for damage here is
enormous.
Crackers as Facilitators
Individuals with a background in intelligence are aware that a
frequent element of case execution is enlisting the indigenous,
sometimes called "facilitators," to assist in a campaign. At the
convergence of the physical and virtual worlds, the indigenous are
the crackers.
There is the incorrect assumption in the cracking community that
they, the crackers, are so sophisticated or so knowledgeable as to
know when they are being approached for a truly illicit reason
(e.g., to be enlisted as a facilitator to commit an act of
terrorism). However, despite cracker arrogance, these individuals
are easy targets for enlistment.
What about those crackers who actively wish to cross the line, or
more basically, need money? To a teenager, a $1,000 U.S. can
purchase a good many compact disks, a new modem, and a great deal
of libation. Beyond youths, there are professionals in this arena
as well.
Historically, individuals engaged in the practice of terror tended
not to be people working upon a computer 20 hours per day.
Terrorists have not been in the business of tracking the latest
holes found in UNIX or an obscure government telnet opportunity.
There are people, however, who are in that business - for illicit
as well as good cause. As stated, just as indigenous people may be
turned into soldiers, so can crackers be turned into
CyberTerrorists. Sometimes such a transition may be motivated by
money or prestige. Usually, this transition will occur without the
cracker's cognizance. The potential threat from such transitions is
mind boggling, considering the damage even one mis-directed cracker
can cause.
Further, as young, educated people are brought into the folds of
terrorist groups, this new generation will have the talent to
execute the acts of CyberTerrorism of which we have spoken.
We are going to see increasing levels of in-house expertise, and
concomitant exponential increases CyberTerrorism. Unlike other
methods of terrorism, CyberTerrorism is safe and profitable, and
difficult to counter without the right expertise and understanding
of the CyberTerrorist's mind. Combine our increasing vulnerability,
with the explosive increases in the level of violence, and
increasing expertise available inside terrorist organizations
through new blood and outside through facilitators, and we can see
that at the point where the physical and virtual worlds converge,
the old models of managing terrorism are obsolete.
Methods of Protection: No Easy Answers
We must consider the following elements when building a
counter-CyberTerrorist program:
We must accept that while the theories of terrorism stand true, the
way in which we approach counter-terrorism, in this case,
counter-CyberTerrorism, must change.
We must cooperate and share intelligence in ways we have never have
before.
We must enlist the assistance of those individuals who understand
the weapons we are facing and have experienced fighting these
wars.
We must learn the new rules, the new technologies, and the new
players.
Unfortunately, one cannot learn how to fight this very
unconventional warfare from someone who hasn't been there, nor from
someone whose experience is in the old ways and old technologies.
The old data processing, auditing, and computer security models in
use today are obsolete. On this battlefield, against this weapon,
the terrorist is already far ahead. The building of a
counter-CyberTerrorist team must be real-time and dynamic, as the
weapons will continually change, to morph, in an attempt to beat
you, your systems, and your people. There is no re-machining, and
unlike other terrorists, if the CyberTerrorist loses today, he does
not die - he learns what did not work, and will use that
information against you tomorrow.
Conclusion
If a computer security advisor states that you, your organization,
and your country are safe behind firewalls, behind a system put
into place by people who have never fought cyberbattles, behind
audit trails, passwords, and encryption, then a great and dangerous
fallacy (or fantasy) is being perpetrated upon you. The only
solution is the quick deployment of a counter-CyberTerrorist -
someone who knows what you are up against today, someone who lives
in the world of the people who are, and will be, attacking -
someone who can train the people who must fight the battles.
Ex Post Facto
An effective auditing system will only inform the target manager
that they have taken a hit; perhaps a fatal hit. By that point, it
is too late. Now is the time to take action. Unfortunately, due to
this open nature of this document, specific counter-CyberTerrorism
measures cannot be discussed. Those discussions must be reserved
for secured facilities.
Counter-terrorists of all backgrounds are duty-bound to save
property, and more importantly, save lives. However, we are not
isolated. We are all increasingly connected, dependent, and
vulnerable. The very basic things we take for granted (e.g., food,
medicine, energy, air, freedom of movement, communications, freedom
from violence) are being threatened by the new weapon of
CyberTerrorism.
If we do not work together, we will be responsible for the outcome.
If we fail to be ready when and where the virtual and physical
worlds converge, then all that will be left is terror - in one's
and zero's.
http://www.afgen.com/terrorism1.html