[GLLUG] Cyber Warfare: In case you missed this

[Stanley Mortel]

>   --President Obama Ordered Stuxnet and More Attacks on Iran
> (June 1, 2012)
> (By Gautham Nagesh, CQ Executive Briefing on Technology)
> The New York Times has a bombshell this morning: President Obama began
> ordering cyberattacks on Iran within days of taking office. The story,
> which is a must-read, finally confirms what many cybersecurity experts
> have suspected: the Stuxnet worm, which disabled industrial equipment
> in Iran and Europe, was originally designed by Israel and the U.S. to
> slow down Iran's nuclear enrichment plant. The virus' escape from Iran's
> Natanz plant and subsequent discovery in Germany in 2010 was a mistake
> that U.S. authorities blamed on Israel. Former CIA chief Michael Hayden
> also acknowledged to the Times that Stuxnet is the first major
> cyberattack intended to cause physical destruction (to Iranian
> centrifuges). "Somebody crossed the Rubicon," he said.
>
> The article includes a history of the classified cyberweapons program,
> dubbed "Olympic Games," which began under President Bush, and includes
> details of how President Obama decided that digital attacks were
> preferable to a potential military conflict between Iran and Israel. But
> the bottom line is that President Obama (and his predecessor) ordered a
> sophisticated campaign of cyberattacks against Iran's nuclear program,
> and has either attacked or considered attacking networks in China,
> Syria, and North Korea as well. The Obama administration previously
> acknowledged that it might respond to cyberattacks with physical force,
> but the report makes it clear that even as the U.S. was making those
> threats, it was perpetrating cyberattacks on the very nations it accuses
> of targeting its networks.
>
> In doing so, the White House has seemingly opened a Pandora's box.
> Administration officials have placed a greater emphasis on cybersecurity
> and the threat to our nation's networks that any previous
> administration, doubtless because they had first-hand knowledge of just
> how much damage sophisticated cyberattacks are capable of causing. Those
> officials might have also feared reprisals from nations that were
> targeted by Stuxnet and other digital attacks from the U.S. The
> revelation also sheds some light on the Pentagon's reluctance to outline
> its cyberwarfare policies in detail, since doing so might have involved
> disclosing to Congress that the U.S. already was fully engaged in online
> battle.
>
> Having taken such an aggressive stance on deploying Stuxnet, it will be
> very difficult for the U.S. to keep casting itself as the innocent
> victim of unprovoked attacks by countries looking to steal our economic
> and military secrets. Today's report makes it clear that the White House
> long ago decided to embrace digital warfare, and puts the onus squarely
> back on the administration to clearly explain its rules of engagement
> online. But the greatest impact may be internationally, where hostile
> nations now have confirmation the U.S. could be targeting their
> networks. If hackers in those countries weren't already attempting to
> take down U.S. critical infrastructure, they probably are now.
> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all