DHS releases Cyber Storm report ( FLAWED, missed )

DHS releases Cyber Storm report ( for 1990's type of attacks..g )

The exercise simulated a large-scale cyber campaign that disrupts multiple critical infrastructure, ( READ: not an all out bot net Pearl Harbor attack, as it only disrupted infrastructure, NOT SHUT IT DOWN ..G )
as well as simulated "physical demonstrations and disturbances"
( should have tested kenitic attacks on the Internet Cable by subs Shutting off the INTERNET, as in Extensive Internet failure has affected much of Asia, the Middle ( RIGHT NOW, ON GOING) East, north Africa...G )
to test the ability of government to respond to multiple incidents simultaneously, even when its not clear that the events are related (read: 9/11).

So how'd our government do? Not so well.

Among other things, the report found that the NCRCG did not have sufficient technical experts on staff to respond to the volume of incidents. "As a result, development of an accurate situational picture was challenging, albeit in part due to the difficulty of the scenario."

That's kind of like saying "If the test was just easier, I would have done better!"

...."Contingency planning for backup or resilient communications methods is a critical need. While only tested for a few players during the exercise, many players noted a high reliance of cyber incident response activities on communication systems that can be, themselves, vulnerable to attack or failure."

So if Cyber Storm was designed to assess the U.S. government's readiness to respond to a coordinated physical and cyber attack on critical infrastructure, the conclusion of this report may be that such an attack, if launched, may well succeed.
SOURCE:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

DIDN'T EVEN LOOK AT WORST CASE scenario......
Take the Internet down one node at a time, till its gone.

NOW PREPARE FOR THAT EMERGENCY.
I would guess the volume of snail mail would explode 10, 100 fold.
Plan to bring in the National Guard to the Post office system
till civilians could be hired.

COME ON GUYS....



Gerald
Internet Anthropologist


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Perfect timing, Gov. Job.

#1)
The Pentagon will power down a controversial domestic spying database known as TALON on September 17, following intense criticisms of the program to track threats against military base following revelations that the database included reports on peaceful anti-war groups. The scandal-plagued Counterintelligence Field Activity office will shut the database on September 17, the Pentagon announced Tuesday. Future threat reports will be funneled to an FBI database known as Guardian.

The announcement was not unexpected as the new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made it clear he wanted to change the Pentagon's intelligence gathering operations and in April said TALON would likely be shut down..

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/pentagon-shutti.html

http://tinyurl.com/2y9vlm

#2)

DHS Data Mining Program Suspended After Evading Privacy Review, Audit Finds

By Ryan Singel August 20, 2007 | 6:01:49 PM

A controversial Homeland Security data mining system called ADVISE that dreamed of searching through trillions of records culled from government, public and private databases analyzed personal information without the required privacy oversight, may cost more than commercially available alternatives and has been suspended until a privacy review has been completed, according to an internal audit.

The Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement program, one of twelve DHS data mining efforts, hit the trifecta of civil libertarians concerns about data mining programs – invasiveness, secrecy and ineffectiveness, according to a recent DHS Inspector General report (.pdf).

DHS hoped the data sifting tool would help analysts "detect, deter, and mitigate threats to our homeland and disseminate timely information to its homeland security partners and the American public." The idea was to build a generic toolset that could find hidden relationships in massive amounts of data and provide the tool to groups working with data sets as divergent as intelligence and newspaper reports to WMD sensor data.

Started in 2003, the program has gotten $42 million in funding through 2007..

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/dhs-data-mining.html

http://tinyurl.com/38awfz

Maybe they can manage to have them both down at the same time? say 9.11 ??

Gerald

Jahidist online chatter,NIE

Reading Between the Intel Estimate's Lines

By Noah Shachtman July 17, 2007 | 11:35:52 AMCategories: Cloak and Dagger

Homeland security scoopmaster Shane Harris, on his new blog, says "there was one tantalizing bit at the end" of the new National Intelligence Estimate.

The estimate seemed to say that the intelligence agencies need to better position themselves to counter the Internet as a tool for terrorism...

The ability to detect broader and more diverse terrorist plotting in this environment will challenge current US defensive efforts and the tools we use to detect and disrupt plots. It will also require greater understanding of how suspect activities at the local level relate to strategic threat information and how best to identify indicators of terrorist activity in the midst of legitimate interactions.

Let me read between the lines here a bit. "The ability to detect broader and more diverse terrorist plotting in this environment..." Here, they're talking about picking up on the signals of an attack--online chatter, rhetoric on jihadi Web sites, but also message traffic, probably money transfers. We've known for a long time that the intelligence agencies focus on the Web and online transactions to detect terrorist patterns.

But to the second point, this "will challenge current US defensive efforts and the tools we use to detect and disrupt plots;" that strikes me as a pretty candid admission. It's not like the intelligence agencies are saying, "We can't detect plotting on the Internet," but they're clearly pointing out this is an area of concern, and one that's going to keep putting counterterrorism specialists through their paces.

In light of this challenge, the agencies will need "greater understanding of how suspect activities at the local level relate to strategic threat information." This strikes me as a clear reference to the use of fusion centers, which are supposed to marry local intelligence with the global threat picture. This could be seen as a shot at the Homeland Security Department. Theoretically, it's DHS' job to put those two pieces together--local and global--but it has never really worked out that way... This is a clear signal that the intelligence community sees fusion centers, and in the integration of local, national, and global threat reporting, as a vital part of domestic security.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/07/reading-between.html