03.02.12

Blow up a dam from the Internet

Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Cyberterrorism at 9:54 am by George Smith

UPDATED

The end-of-the-week ludicrous quote worth citation comes out of the RSA Security Conference, held this week in San Francisco.

The conference is full of corporate computer security big names — and a lot of total nobodies grasping at straws. It’s famous for good exaggeration and hand-waving claims made just for the sake of publicity.

From one of the nobodies, a company called Zscaler:

SCADA systems used in industrial facilities could represent a target for cyberterrorist attacks. “If you’re talking about terrorism in the real world where you want to blow up a dam or do some destruction, you can potentially do that remotely through a cyber attack,” Geide said. The technology required to do this already exists, he said.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Not arguments from pseudo-authority at vendor conferences.

From a New York Times blog:

Panel discussions piled fearmongering upon fearmongering. Of the more egregious examples: One RSA panel discussion about trojans, malware and targeted hacks included a slide featuring a month-old online ad for a hitman’s services. The hitman offered to “eliminate someone while keeping above suspicion??? within 30 days for $9,133. It’s still not entirely clear what this had to do with trojans, or cyberattacks, but it was scary nonetheless.

Yes, hire a hitman on the Internet.

“Professional contract killings at prices you can afford,” it reads. “Let our team of experienced contract killers make a bold statement on your behalf.”

10,806 likes on Facebook.

I was thinking of thumbs-upping it myself. Only nine-ninety five, cash money to PayPal, to join.

Coincidentally, Facebook also a favorite place for those looking to contact the alleged Internet hitman business.

---

Also on hand, the standard US government rep, in this case Ashton Carter, a man with an undistinguished career as a reliable water-bearer of concerned-sounding comment or weather vane for whichever way the winds blows in defense policy:

[Ashton Carter] expressed concern that neither governments nor the private sector are yet taking security sufficiently seriously.

“Cyber will overtake terrorism as the persistent gnawing kind of threat and danger.

He … said the [Pentagon’s] strategy would aim to defend both classified and unclassified networks, create technology using the DoD’s “weight and resources” and distribute it to law enforcement agencies.

Permalink