01.09.13
Tit for Tat: Cyberwar back from holiday
One way of telling cyberwar is a function of shoeshine and job programs for the top rung of US society and the national security drivers is that it regularly goes on holiday.
Computer malware and insecurity never takes a holiday. But cyberwar does and that’s because it’s driven by press campaigns. And the people who push it, the indispensable tellers of its stories, were off from the end of December until now.
The [Iranian] attackers said last week that they had no intention of halting their campaign [of attacking US bank websites]. “Officials of American banks must expect our massive attacks,??? they wrote. “From now on, none of the U.S. banks will be safe.???
And we have so noticed the attacks. Iranian cyberstrikes so affected the US financial transaction system that the Christmas holidays were marked by a surge in dispensations of cash for assault rifle sales and runs on ammunition. And in newspaper interviews the only thing gun owners said they hated more than Barack Obama and his gun grabbing moves were the cybersoldiers and hackers messing with their bank websites.
Ahem.
The US government now attributes the cyberwar to retaliation over Stuxnut and other computer viruses that US has turned on the Iranian nuclear program.
The primary flack for cyberwar, James Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies:
But American intelligence officials say the group is actually a cover for Iran. They claim Iran is waging the attacks in retaliation for Western economic sanctions and for a series of cyberattacks on its own systems. In the last three years, three sophisticated computer viruses — called Flame, Duqu and Stuxnet — have hit computers in Iran. The New York Times reported last year that the United States, together with Israel, was responsible for Stuxnet, the virus used to destroy centrifuges in an Iranian nuclear facility in 2010.
“It’s a bit of a grudge match,??? said Mr. Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“The attackers hit one American bank after the next,” reads the Times lede. “As in so many previous attacks, dozens of online banking sites slowed, hiccupped or ground to a halt before recovering several minutes later.”
Great copy! What could be next, we wonder? Perhaps we will have to close a couple browser windows, clear the cache, and try again.
Get the bombers and cruise missiles ready. Everyone needs to know that our retaliations won’t necessarily be symmetrical or in kind.