(This video chapter begins at 14:45 and ends at 16:25. Click on the blue dot at the 14:45 timestamp to play the video for this module.)

Critical Cyber Threats

Critical cyber threats are those that if carried out, could have a debilitating effect on an organization, or even a country. In the case of a country, it could negatively impact aspects such as security, national economic security, and national public health.

Our focus quote for this module:

“Cyber war takes place largely in secret, unknown to the general public on both sides.” –Noah Feldman

Critical Cyber Threats

As mentioned above, these cyber threats are not designed to temporarily disable an organization, but completely destroy it. To give you an idea of the magnitude of such an attack, again using a country as an example, according to the Department of Homeland Security, some of the critical infrastructures of a country that can be demolished as a result include:

• Energy
• Defense
• Transportation
• Food and agriculture
• Emergency services
• Communications
• Water and wastewater
• Manufacturing
• Chemical
• Commercial facilities
• Dams
• Finance
• Healthcare
• Government facilities

Cyber Terrorism

Examples of Cyber terrorism include:

• A computer hacker allegedly associated with the White Supremacist movement temporarily disabled a Massachusetts ISP and damaged part of the ISP’s record keeping system. The ISP had attempted to stop the hacker from sending out worldwide racist messages under the ISP’s name. The hacker signed off with the threat, “you have yet to see true electronic terrorism. This is a promise.”

• Spanish protesters bombarded the Institute for Global Communications (IGC) with thousands of bogus e-mail messages. E-mail was tied up and undeliverables to the ISP’s users, and support lines were tied up with people who couldn’t get their mail. The protestors also spammed IGC staff and member accounts, clogged their Web page with bogus credit card orders, and threatened to employ the same tactics against organizations using IGC services. They demanded that IGC stop hosting the Web site for the Euskal Herria Journal, a New York-based publication supporting Basque independence. Protestors said IGC supported terrorism because a section on the Web pages contained materials on the terrorist group ETA, which claimed responsibility for assassinations of Spanish political and security officials, and attacks on military installations. IGC finally relented and pulled the site because of the “mail bombings.”

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber terrorism

CSIS, Center for Strategic and International Studies, provides an incidents list of more recent global

cyber-attacks. https://www.csis.org

Cyber Warfare

Cyber warfare is a means of war against another state or country to damage that other state/country’s information networks. Many times, this is carried out via computer viruses or denial of service attacks.

Examples of Cyber warfare include:

• The United States hacked into Serbia’s air defense system to compromise air traffic control and facilitate the bombing of Serbian targets.
• In Estonia, a botnet of over a million computers brought down government, business and media websites across the country. The attack was suspected to have originated in Russia, motivated by political tension between the two countries.
• A cyber spy network called “Ghost Net” accessed confidential information belonging to both governmental and private organizations in over 100 countries around the world. Ghost Net was reported to originate in China, although that country denied responsibility.

Source: http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/cyberwarfare

Cyber Espionage

The purpose of cyber espionage is to obtain the secrets of another, without their permission. The perpetrator of the espionage is typically trying to acquire sensitive, proprietary, or classified information. This can be committed against anyone from an individual, to a company, to a country. The information will be used as an advantage against the one from whom the information was stolen. It can be accomplished through means such as cracking, Trojans, and the installation of Spyware.

Examples of cyber espionage include:

• The Wall Street Journal reported that unnamed government officials told the Wall Street Journal that cyberspies from China and Russia had broken into computer systems used by companies maintaining the three North American electrical grids.
• Canadian researchers revealed, that a cyber-spy network based in China had broken into diplomatic computer systems involving 103 different countries. Beijing denied any official involvement, but the investigation had begun when the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s leader-in-exile, noticed that sensitive documents from his own PCs had turned up in Chinese hands.
• Just after Barack Obama’s election victory, Newsweek revealed that both the Illinois senator’s campaign and that of his rival, at the time, Sen. John McCain, had been spied upon by a foreign power that had placed spyware on staffers’ computers.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2009/04/22/five-serious-cases-cyberespionage.html

Practical Illustration

In the past few weeks, Lucky’s Cleaners has been receiving harassing emails from a local competitor that says they are going to ruin Lucky’s reputation and run them out of business. Martha, the owner is concerned that they may bad mouth them to prospective clients and may even do something to their computer system that will negatively impact business without them knowing it. Martha sits down with Robert, the cleaner’s manager, to discuss what is going on and what they can do to fix the problem.