CIA to issue cyberterror intelligence estimate

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 07:32:44 -0500
From: John Lowry <jlowry () bbn com>
Subject: [PCD Discussion] CIA to issue cyberterror intelligence estimate
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To: PCD Discussion Forum <Cyberwar () uspcd org>

CIA to issue cyberterror intelligence estimate

  By DAN VERTON
 FEBRUARY 24, 2004

 WASHINGTON -- The CIA, working with the FBI, the Department of Homeland
Security and the Pentagon, this week will publish the first-ever classified
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the threat of cyberterrorism against
U.S. critical infrastructures.

 News about the estimate, which was first requested in March 2000 by a
senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, came today during a
Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on cyberterrorist threats and
capabilities.

 However, Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on
Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, and ranking member Sen. Diane
Feinstein (D-Calif.) expressed concern that the Department of Homeland
Security has not focused enough high-level attention on the threat posed by
terrorist-sponsored cyber disruptions or physical attacks against critical
cyber infrastructures.

 "I'm afraid that we're not taking this threat seriously enough," said
Feinstein. In particular, she said she was troubled by the decision to move
the position once held by former cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke from the
White House to where it now sits, several layers down in the DHS
bureaucracy. She questioned the extent to which Amit Yoran, the current
director of the National Cyber Security Division at the DHS, can influence
the overall national homeland security strategy.

 Yoran, however, said the DHS does not view cybersecurity as a separate
entity, but "one element" of a larger critical infrastructure protection
strategy.

 Kyl pressed Yoran to answer specific questions about the cyberthreats posed
to the U.S. by both nation-states and terrorist organizations. Yoran was
unable to provide any answers and relied instead on supporting testimony
from John Malcolm, deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice
Department, and Keith Lourdeau, deputy assistant director of the FBI's Cyber
Division.

 According to Yoran, the DHS takes a "threat-independent" approach to
cybersecurity and does not assess the capabilities or intent of any specific
group or individual. "We'll have to wait and see what the NIE says," Yoran
told Kyl.

 Lourdeau said the FBI's assessment indicates that the cyberterrorist threat
to the U.S. is "rapidly expanding." In addition, the FBI predicts that
"terrorist groups will either develop or hire hackers, particularly for the
purpose of complementing large physical attacks with cyberattacks," he said.

 Describing what could have become a cyberterrorist incident, Lourdeau
explained how two hackers on May 3, 2003, sent an e-mail to the National
Science Foundation's Network Operations Center. In it, they claimed to have
penetrated the NSF network that controls life-support systems for dozens of
scientists at a South Pole research station at a time when weather
conditions would not permit aircraft to deliver assistance.

 The e-mail, which threatened to expose the vulnerability data unless the
attacker was paid money, "contained data only found on the NSF's computer
systems, proving that this was no hoax," said Lourdeau.

 The FBI eventually determined that the intruders were using computers in a
cybercafe in Romania and had first hacked into a system operated by a
trucking company in Pittsburgh before breaking into the NSF network. The two
hackers were arrested in June.

 Malcolm urged the committee "not to allow the provisions [of the USA
Patriot Act] to sunset." According to him, key provisions of the law,
including those that permit courts to issue nationwide search warrants for
electronic communications, are "essential to any prosecution of
cyberterrorism."

 Source: Computerworld









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