NIPC - A Failure To Communicate

[security curmudgeon <jericho () ATTRITION ORG>]

http://www.infowarrior.org/articles/2000-06.html

NIPC - A Failure To Communicate

Richard Forno
rforno () infowarrior org

Essay #2000-06

2 September 2000

Once again, NIPC has stepped all over themselves and provided us in the
security community (i.e., those of us with a clue about Internet
operations) with a late-in-the-week yukk heading into the Labor Day
weekend.

This past Thursday morning started with a bang. As director of security
for a major 'net company, I received early-morning voicemail messages from
professional colleagues telling me to check my inbox for the latest
security vulnerability from the National Infrastructure Protection Center.
NIPC is located within the FBI and is the organization charged with
cyber-security matters within the Department of Justice. Thinking it was
something akin to a DNS attack or some significant attack against our net
infrastructure, I scrambled to a vacant NOC console to check my e-mail and
see what the brohaha was about.

Much to my surprise, the NIPC alert page being referred to by my
associates read, IN ITS ENTIRETY:


[snip...]

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