New online game trains kids against cyber attacks. By Army News Service on Wednesday, November 7th, 2012 Worms, viruses, Trojan horses, and spyware: BEWARE! The National Science Center, or NSC, is now training kids to stay safe from cyber attack malware when they’re surfing the web or using email and cell phones. A new online game called Cyber Swarm Defenders is targeted to 6th-8th grade students and is also appropriate for younger students. The game is part of the NSC’s newest Cyber Ops education outreach program.
The NSC is a public-private partnership between the U.S. “Anything we can do to make the young students of our country understand the cyber threat and get them excited about STEM technologies has a big payoff,” said Ron Ross, chairman of the NSC. “Educating students about cyber security threats and how to counteract them is imperative,” said Mike Krieger, the Army deputy chief information officer, who serves as the secretary of the Army’s proponent for the NSC. Related Topic Tags. New weapons for cyber warfare. The CHAMP project. (Translated from the original Italian) Cyber warfare scenario is rapidly changing, governments all around the world are investing to increase their cyber capabilities and designing new tools to adopt in cyberspace to face with opponents in what is considered the fifth domain of warfare.
The warfare scenario is deeply changed, new actors fight in the cyberspace an asymmetric war with rules of engagement completely distorted, the intent is to destroy and interfere with enemy systems in critical infrastructures. Principal defense companies are developing new solutions to propose to governments and intelligence agencies, recently Boeing firm has successfully tested a new generation of missile which is able to attack the computer systems of a country without causing loss of life. The project is known with the acronym of CHAMP (Counter-electronics High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project) and uses the microwaves to permanently knock out computers in a specific area. Pierluigi Paganini. Cyberwar Is Already Upon Us - By John Arquilla. In the nearly 20 years since David Ronfeldt and I introduced our concept of cyberwar, this new mode of conflict has become a reality. Cyberwar is here, and it is here to stay, despite what Thomas Rid and other skeptics think.
Back then, we emphasized the growing importance of battlefield information systems and the profound impact their disruption would have in wars large and small. It took just a few years to see how vulnerable the U.S. military had become to this threat. Although most information on cyberwar's repercussions -- most notably the 1997 Eligible Receiver exercise -- remains classified, suffice it to say that their effect on U.S. forces would be crippling. Cyberwar waged against one of America's allies has already proved devastating. When Russian tanks rolled into Georgia in 2008, their advance was greatly eased by cyberattacks on Tbilisi's command, control, and communications systems, which were swiftly and nearly completely disrupted. So, yes, cyberwar has arrived. Boeing's Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project. While the U.S. geared up for the second presidential debate last Tuesday, a building sat pulsing with computers, electronic surveillance, and security systems in the Utah high desert.
The unoccupied site was awaiting the test of a weapon the Pentagon requested four years ago to the day on 16 October, 2008. The Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), led by Boeing's Phantom works, promised to change the face of contemporary warfare, and its test was a complete success. CHAMP flew over the Utah Test and Training Range last Tuesday, discharging a burst of High Power Microwaves onto the test site and brought down the compound's entire spectrum of electronic systems, apparently without producing any other damage at all.
Even the camera recording the test was shut down. Struggling to contain his enthusiasm, Boeing's Keith Coleman says, "We hit every target we wanted to. Seattle PI The test site as it progressed from waiting until camera shut down. Federal News Radio. The military has known for years that it will never be able to compete with the private sector when it comes to paying cyber experts. Pay, however, is not the only factor that keeps a soldier, sailor, airman or marine in the military. The Air Force is banking on the idea that job satisfaction might be a retention tool that overcomes the pay gap between what an airman might be able to get from industry and what he or she earns from Uncle Sam.
"The money's better on the outside. We get that," Skip Runyan, the technical director for the 39th Information Operations Squadron, the Air Force's main cyber training unit, said in an interview with Federal News Radio. "But when you're working with the right authorities here, you can do a lot of things that can get you put in jail in the private sector," he said. Having the legal authority to hack into computer systems is one thing. The problem with that, Runyan said: They get bored. The Air Force has done just that. True enough, said Maj. Passive optical network.
Downstream traffic in active (top) vs. passive optical network History[edit] Two major standard groups, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Telecommunication Standardization Sector of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T), develop standards along with a number of other industry organizations. The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) also specified radio frequency over glass for carrying signals over a passive optical network. FSAN and ITU[edit] Starting in 1995, work on fiber to the home architectures was done by the Full Service Access Network (FSAN) working group, formed by major telecommunications service providers and system vendors.[1] The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) did further work, and standardized on two generations of PON.
By mid-2008, Verizon had installed over 800,000 lines. Security[edit] IEEE[edit] There are currently[when?] Network elements[edit] Upstream bandwidth allocation[edit] Variants[edit] HoneyMap - Visualizing Worldwide Attacks in Real-Time. The HoneyMap shows a real-time visualization of attacks against the Honeynet Project's sensors deployed around the world. It leverages the internal data sharing protocol hpfeeds as its data source. Read this post to learn about the technical details and frequently asked questions. Before going into explanations, take a look at the map itself: map.honeynet.org! We have seen attack visualizations for quite some time in various forms and availabilities. So far, we only had a GTK canvas based solution and a project around Google Earth and WebGL that would show attacks against our honeypot systems. The most awesome related projects are coming from our Australian folks (thanks Ben) - make sure to take a look at their site.
Despite earlier nice approaches, a pure web based one that could easily be shared was not existing. Internally, the Honeynet Project uses hpfeeds for collecting data from honeypots and sharing it across different analysis components and data storage setups. Global cyberattacks linked to Chinese LuckyCat hacker group. Security firm TrendMicro has linked a series of cyber attacks in Japan, India and Tibet to a Chinese hacker group called Luckycat, and revealed one of the group's members to be a Chinese university student. The LuckyCat campaign has been active since June 2011, and has compromised 233 computers while attacking more than 90 different targets. The group uses unique campaign codes to track different victims and malware. By using emails laden with malicious software, the group attacked the aerospace, energy, shipping, military and research industries, and also targeted Tibetan activists.
In an extensive report , TrendMicro describes how they figured out the source of the attacks, and the identity of one member. LuckyCat campaigners used a piece of malware that creates an exhaustive directory listing of a compromised system, alongside system information. Another big clue about the hackers? Image: Good luck cat / Eric / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. The Cybercrime Wave That Wasn’t. Yet in terms of economics, there’s something very wrong with this picture. Generally the demand for easy money outstrips supply. Is cybercrime an exception? If getting rich were as simple as downloading and running software, wouldn’t more people do it, and thus drive down returns? We have examined cybercrime from an economics standpoint and found a story at odds with the conventional wisdom. A few criminals do well, but cybercrime is a relentless, low-profit struggle for the majority. Well, not really. How do we reconcile this view with stories that cybercrime rivals the global drug trade in size?
Most cybercrime estimates are based on surveys of consumers and companies. For one thing, in numeric surveys, errors are almost always upward: since the amounts of estimated losses must be positive, there’s no limit on the upside, but zero is a hard limit on the downside. THE cybercrime surveys we have examined exhibit exactly this pattern of enormous, unverified outliers dominating the data. Number of the week: 780 new malicious programs designed to steal users’ online banking data detected every day. 02 Feb 2012Virus News According to Kaspersky Security Network data, over the last three months Trojan bankers have been detected on an average of 2000 unique users’ computers every day. Moreover, 780 signatures for new malicious programs that target sensitive financial information are added to Kaspersky Lab’s antivirus database on a daily basis – that is 1.1% of the total number of malware detected every day by the company’s software. Notably, in January Kaspersky Lab experts discovered Trojan-Banker.MSIL.MultiPhishing.gen which is designed to steal account details from clients of numerous banks including Santander, HSBC Bank UK, Metro Bank, Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB, and Barclays.
After launching, the Trojan waits for an online banking service to start running. It then opens a window that imitates an authorization form for the respective bank. Interestingly, the Trojan allows no mistakes, checking the accuracy of the data that is entered. Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist. Public Intelligence A flyer designed by the FBI and the Department of Justice to promote suspicious activity reporting in internet cafes lists basic tools used for online privacy as potential signs of terrorist activity.
The document, part of a program called “Communities Against Terrorism”, lists the use of “anonymizers, portals, or other means to shield IP address” as a sign that a person could be engaged in or supporting terrorist activity. The use of encryption is also listed as a suspicious activity along with steganography, the practice of using “software to hide encrypted data in digital photos” or other media. In fact, the flyer recommends that anyone “overly concerned about privacy” or attempting to “shield the screen from view of others” should be considered suspicious and potentially engaged in terrorist activities. Bureau Recommends: US accuses China and Russia of vast cybertheft.
The Chinese and Russian governments are using cyber attacks on American companies to steal ‘tens of billions of dollars’ worth of military, technology and economic secrets, a new report by U.S. intelligence officials claims. This is the first time that the US have directly and publicly accused China and Russia of being the top offenders in the theft of American information. ‘Chinese actors are the world’s most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage,’ while Russia’s intelligence services ‘are conducting a range of activities to collect economic information and technology from U.S. targets,’ according to the report by the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive.
Related story: Syrian Government accused of using online spy technology to monitor dissidents. The Bureau recommends the Washington Post’s in-depth coverage and exploration of the story, which sets it in a historical context and provides expert commentary. Read the full report here. Cyber attacks could wreck world oil supply. Cyber Soldiers: Hackers in Fatigues. Earlier this month the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command activated the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade, with two battalions – Fort Meade located 781st MI Battalion and the 782nd MI, located at Fort Gordon, Ga. The new brigade will support the U.S. and Army Cyber Commands conducting signals intelligence, computer network operations, and when directed, offensive operations, in support of DOD, Army and interagency operations worldwide, while denying the same to its adversaries.
The intent is to support General Keith B. Alexander, commander of USCYBERCOM and director of the NSA. Col. Jonathan Sweet, commander, 780th Military Intelligence Brigade, addresses his troops following their first official brigade run, conducted Dec. 2, 2011, following the unit's activation ceremony, which was held Dec. 1, at Friedman Auditorium, Fort George G. Meade, Md. This ceremonial activation in the U.S. underscores the quiet building of cyber units throughout the world.
Comments comments. “Cyber War Will Not Take Place” I had the absolute honor of receiving a copy of Dr. Thomas Rid’s article entitled, “Cyber War Will Not Take Place“. This is, hands down, one of the best arguments I have seen that there has been no cyber war in the past, there currently is no cyber war going on today, and a cyber war will probably not take place in the future: ABSTRACT For almost two decades, experts and defense establishments the world over have been predicting that cyber war is coming.
But is it? This article argues in three steps that cyber war has never happened in the past, that cyber war does not take place in the present, and that it is unlikely that cyber war will occur in the future. Dr. Topics covered include: The Siberian pipeline explosion in 1982The attack on EstoniaThe assault on Georgia‘Moonlight Maze’ cyber-espionage incidentIsrael’s bombing raid on SyriaStuxnet“Anonymous” attacks on HBGary, and many more Each case is dissected and compared to Carl von Clausewitz’s definition of what war really is: Dr.
Features / eWorld : Cyber attack, the new battle line. With unprecedented levels of dependence on the internet, cyber attacks will be on the rise if steps are not taken to shield the system. In the movie Sneakers (1992), Robert Redford is tricked into stealing a decoder device that can break encryption codes and hack into the most secure computer systems. Turns out, the perpetrators behind the operation want the device to destabilise the world economy and unleash anarchy. Then again in the action movie Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Bruce Willis fights cyber terrorists who want to take control of the US' transportation grids (including airports, railroads, and traffic lights) and the stock markets. Reel life scripts are usually far removed from real life. Or are they? Consider this. Recent media reports suggest that CBI believes a possible virus attack could have been the reason for the technical problems at Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, in June.
Eyeing the State Treading carefully Crisis Management Starting from scratch. Security researchers discover 'indestructible' botnet. Cyber war: Indian hackers take down OGRA site. Sorry, but the TDL botnet is not 'indestructible' | Malware. Cyber war talks 'invade' CeBIT. Cyber Weapons: The New Arms Race. Sobre Anonimato, Privacidade e Neutralidade com a Internet. List of significant cracks and DDOSs since February 2011. TheW0ngZ's Channel. Chinese Military Slips Up And Broadcasts Cyberwar Campaign Against U.S. Targets. Hacker Attack Disrupts Al-Qaeda Communications. Kioptrix. Hackers of the World Unite.