06.24.13
Useless tool of cyberwar journalism
I’d skipped this last week because it was a particularly exceptional example of pathetic American journalism, a feature at high button Vanity Fair, on the “terrifying” nature of cyberwar.
It was made for the print edition, so it was completed before the Edward Snowden affair blew the rubbish of it into the trash. It’s standard script-writing, take the pants-wetting stories from anonymous government security sources, embellish with purple prose, and let a couple hackers of either stock smarm or villainy be presented as potentially able to take down portions of the the US with just a few keystrokes because they are so smart.
The latter was old stew over a decade ago.
Anyway, some of the worst of it (no link, Vanity Fair being another website of the infinite download):
On the hidden battlefields of history’s first known cyber-war, the casualties are piling up. In the U.S., many banks have been hit, and the telecommunications industry seriously damaged, likely in retaliation for several major attacks on Iran.
(Did you notice the telecommunications industry was seriously damaged by Iran? Somehow Escape from WhiteManistan missed it.)
Even so, many current and former government officials took account of the brute force on display and shuddered to think what might have happened if the target had been different: the Port of Los Angeles, say, or the Social Security Administration, or O’Hare International Airport. Holy shit, one former national-security official recalls thinking—pick any network you want, and they could do this to it. Just wipe it clean.
(Yes, terrible. Iran could take down the US through cyberspace. Never mind restore from backup. Repeat terrifying script of puny country making entire US infrastructure collapse.)
Asymmetric warfare — unconventional, guerrilla-style attacks on more powerful adversaries, such as the U.S.— is a cornerstone of Iranian military doctrine.
Repeat script third time. Puny country, master of guerrilla cyber-warfare, threatens US infrastructure.
During the second week of September 2012, a new spate of cyber-attacks against American interests began. This time, the targets were on American soil: U.S. banks. A previously unknown group calling itself the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters and presenting itself as an organization of Sunni jihadists made an online posting written in broken English, referring to an anti-Islamic video on YouTube called “Innocence of Muslims??? that had sparked riots in the Muslim world the week before. The posting stated that “Muslims must do whatever is necessary to stop spreading this movie All the Muslim youths who are active in the Cyber world will attack to American and Zionist Web bases as much as needed such that they say that they are sorry about that insult.???
Next script: They attacked the financial system. Yes, nothing gets up the sympathy of the man in the street against the outside enemy by telling him someone attacked the websites of giant American banks.
To absorb the gargantuan volume of traffic coming their way, banks had to buy more bandwidth, which telecommunication companies had to create and provide. Telecoms have borne the brunt of these battles, just as the banks have, spending large sums to expand their networks, and to strengthen or replace hardware associated with their “scrubber??? services, which absorb DDoS traffic. Qassam’s first wave of attacks was so intense that it reportedly broke the scrubbers of one of this country’s largest and best-known telecom companies. In December, AT&T executive director of technology security Michael Singer reportedly stated that the attacks posed a growing threat to the telecommunications infrastructure …
Be afraid, very afraid. Because, like … the banks (!) and … AT&T!
A hacker in Iran who appeared to be the prime mover in this group goes by the name of Mormoroth. Some of the information concerning these attack tools was posted to his blog; the blog has since disappeared. His Facebook page includes pictures of himself and his hacker friends in swaggering poses reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs. Also on Facebook, his hacking group’s page bears the slogan “Security is like sex, once you’re penetrated, you’re fucked.???
Another hack, which occurred even as the bank attacks continued through the spring, delivered a still more dramatic financial threat, although its ultimate source was difficult to discern. On April 23, the Twitter account of the Associated Press sent this message: “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama Is Injured.??? Faced with this news, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 150 points—the equivalent of $136 billion in value—within a matter of minutes. Upon learning that the information was false—and that the A.P.’s Twitter account had simply been hacked—the markets rebounded. A group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army (S.E.A.) claimed credit for the disruption.
Enough, really enough. Perfect Culture of Lickspittle material.