PAF & Future Cyber Warfare

[PAFAce]

Hacking a website is not "Cyber Warfare". I believe some people here have been watching too many Hollywood movies, it ain't that easy to bring down the electronic defences of another country through an internet connection. Most nuclear power plants here in Canada don't even have the internet. Most top-secret information is still stored in vaults or in isolated servers with limited connectivity to the outside world. These are, as salman has said above, closed and isolated systems. You can't access them from the outside world.

There are two other words that are more appropriate for what you guys are claiming. Cyber Espionage and Cyber Vandalism. Hacking and defacing websites is Cyber Vandalism, and it serves little purpose other than show-boating and propaganda/counter-propaganda (like the recent Iranian attack on Twitter). The importance of this should not be underestimated, it worries the average man to see the website of a critical organization go down, but that's about it. Cyber Espionage, on the other hand, is much more serious and isn't anything new. It is considered branch of Signal Intelligence by some, and a completely separate form of intelligence gathering technique by others. However, in most cases, proper measures are taken to make it impossible for somebody to conduct an act of Cyber Espionage unless they have inside access.

Lastly. Yes, "suspected" Chinese hackers did break into computers containing classified material regarding the Joint Strike Fighter project. However, since these were systems with access to the outside world, none of the information believed to have been compromised was even remotely dangerous
(the keyword is believed). It was mostly project management documentation and design manuals.

The recent news of Iraqi insurgents hacking into the video feed of the Predator drone can also be considered Cyber Espionage. Though, realistically, it should be considered a regular "hack" since commercial software was used to intercept un-encrypted data.

 

[DaRk WaVe]

Nato says cyber warfare poses as great a threat as a missile attack​

Nato is treating the threat of cyber warfare as seriously as the risk of a missile strike, according to a senior official.

A London conference was told that online espionage and internet-based terrorism now represent some of the gravest threats to global security.

Suleyman Anil, who is in charge of protecting Nato against computer attacks, said: "Cyber defence is now mentioned at the highest level along with missile defence and energy security.

"We have seen more of these attacks and we don't think this problem will disappear soon. Unless globally supported measures are taken, it can become a global problem."

Anil, who is head of Nato's computer incident response centre, told the E-Crime congress in London that the cost of hi-tech strikes on government communications was falling, while the amount of damage they could inflict grew.

Among the chief threats is cyber terrorism, in which attempts are made to shut down online communication networks or use the internet to attack official institutions. Although some have warned of the possible threat since the 1980s, it is only in recent years that the issue has made it onto the radar of governments around the world.

But Anil also warned of rogue nations who could sponsor internet-based attacks on Nato members. "There are nations who are not just working on defence capabilities, but who have attack capabilities - and that brings a new dimension to the whole issue," he said.

The annual E-Crime congress is one the largest gatherings of those who work to combat cyber crime. Delegates included banking experts, police and IT industry luminaries, all keen to discover new ways to fight online crime.

The prospect of internet-based warfare has come to the fore after a series of high-profile international attacks. Last year, it emerged that a gang of hackers, believed to be from China, had infiltrated computer systems at the Pentagon and launched attacks on government networks in Britain, Germany, India and Australia. US officials, who have labelled the group Titan Rain, have accused them of operating under the auspices of officials in Beijing.

Another strike in Estonia, which has one of the most hi-tech governments in the world, was initially blamed on hackers backed by the Russian authorities. However only one teenager, an Estonian, has been arrested in connection with the incident so far.

To coincide with the congress, shadow home secretary David Davis will today announce Conservative proposals on online crime - including the creation of a new post of cyber security minister. The Tory plans also outline the reinstitution of a national hi-tech crimes police squad, and forming a dedicated unit inside the Crown Prosecution Service for dealing with computer crime cases.

"Cybercrime is a growing and serious threat to individuals, business and government. It is a problem that will continue to escalate as technology changes," said Davis.

Kevin Poulsen, a former hacker who is now an editor with technology magazine Wired, has accused politicians and the media of overplaying the fear factor.

"In some ways, Estonia's attacks were less sophisticated than previous 'cyberwars' - like those between Israeli and Palestinian hackers, India and Pakistan, China and the US," he said. "Even those attacks fell short of a cyber war, at least as experts have defined the term. I'm sceptical that real cyber war, or cyber terrorism, will ever take place."

Despite the lack of hard evidence on the nature or identities of cyber terrorists, however, the threat is deemed serious enough for the White House to allocate $6bn (£3bn) for strengthening its systems against attack.

Those plans have been characterised by critics as a potential invasion of civil liberties. Bush administration officials say they are a necessary defensive measure. Homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff has called it "one area where we have significant work to do".

Nato says cyber warfare poses as great a threat as a missile attack | Technology | The Guardian

 

[DaRk WaVe]

10 things you didn't know about cyberwarfare​

NEW YORK CITY -- Imagine a situation where a powerful country wants to annex its small neighbor, so it launches a week-long campaign of cyberattacks aimed at disrupting the financial, energy, telecom and media systems of its neighbor's biggest ally. A week later, the aggressor launches a full-scale cyberwar on its neighbor that includes air and naval defenses. With its ally's defenses weakened, the neighbor agrees to become a province of the aggressor in less than a week.

This scenario is not so far-fetched, according to several experts from the National Defense University who spoke at the Cyber Infrastructure Protection Conference held here last week.

The panel discussion on cyberwarfare is timely given the Obama administration's push to raise awareness and federal spending on cybersecurity initiatives. The president issued a cybersecurity plan earlier this month that includes naming a new high-level cybersecurity coordinator who reports to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.

President Obama has said it's clear that the cyberthreat is "one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation. It's also clear that we're not as prepared as we should be, as a government, or as a country."

Experts from the National Defense University, the premier academic institution providing professional education to U.S. military forces, say it is critical for the private sector to realize it will be a target of future cyberwarfare.

"Our adversaries are looking for our weaknesses," says Dan Kuehl, professor of information operations at the National Defense University. "We conduct military operations that are increasingly information dependent and becoming more so. We have a global society that is increasingly dependent on critical infrastructure, and those infrastructures are increasingly interconnected in a global economy."

Kuehl points out that it's inexpensive for terrorists or hactivists to launch a cyberattack, but it's very expensive and difficult for a country such as the United States to defend its networks and systems against these threats.

"The weaker party may have a very important asymmetric advantage," Kuehl says. "And the first actor may have a very important advantage….Winning in the cyber realm may decide the course of the war."

One example of how weaker parties have an advantage in cyberwarfare is the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Stuart Starr, distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University, said the attackers used Google Earth and GPS technology to locate themselves with respect to everybody else.

"They took advantage of hundreds of billions of dollars of investment by buying low-end equipment," Starr said. "These guys are getting a phenomenal benefit from taking advantage of commercial investments."

Based on conventional wisdom of these military experts, here is a list of 10 things you probably didn't know about cyberwarfare

1. You need to win the first battle.

In conventional warfare, the country that wins the first battle doesn't necessarily win the war. Think Pearl Harbor. But with cyberwarfare, you need to win the first battle because there may not be a second. The enemy may have so wiped out your critical infrastructure through coordinated cyberattacks that you can't mount an effective defense and are forced to surrender.

2. The first battle could be over in nanoseconds.

Unlike Pearl Harbor, cyberattacks are stealthy. The enemy has already penetrated your networks, attacked your systems and stolen or manipulated your data before you realize that anything is wrong. Once you discover the cyberattack, you have to figure out who did it and why. Today, this type of computer forensics can take days or weeks. By then, you may have lost the war.

3. Cyberwarfare may involve subtle, targeted attacks rather than brute force.

Most people equate cyberwarfare with the massive denial-of-service (DoS) attacks that Russian activists aimed at Estonia in 2007. But cyberwarfare doesn't need to be waged on such a large scale. Instead of taking out the entire electric grid, a hacker could take out a substation that supports a particular air defense system. Much as we have precision-guided missiles in conventional warfare, we may have precision-guided cyberattacks.

4. The enemy's goal may be to cause chaos rather than destruction.

We tend to think about an enemy blowing up buildings or transportation systems during war. But the political objective of cyberwarfare may be to generate chaos among citizens rather than to destroy infrastructure. For example, what if an enemy launched a cyberattack against a country's financial systems and it appeared that everyone's money was gone from their banks? That kind of attack wouldn't require bombing any bank buildings to create chaos.

5. Data manipulation -- rather than data theft or destruction -- is a serious threat.

During the Persian Gulf War, a group of Dutch hackers allegedly penetrated dozens of U.S. military computer systems and offered to provide their help to Saddam Hussein. When the breaches were discovered, the military had to stop some deployments and verify that the data in their databases were accurate and hadn't been manipulated by the hackers. This incident demonstrates how misinformation inside hacked computers systems could harm a country's ability to respond to a cyberattack.

6. Private networks will be targets.

Most of our country's critical infrastructure -- energy, transportation, telecommunications and financial -- is privately owned. The companies that operate these networks need to understand that they are certain to be targeted in cyberwarfare, and they need to spend money accordingly to secure their networks, systems and data. This is one reason military experts recommend that operators of critical infrastructure engage with government officials and set up procedures and protocols before they are attacked.

7. When private sector networks are hit, the Defense Department will assume control.There's a misconception that the owners and operators of critical infrastructure are responsible for cybersecurity. That perspective won't hold up in the face of cyberwarfare, experts predict. Just as the military is responsible for securing the airspace and ground around an electricity plant, so it is going to assume responsibility for the cybersecurity of that plant if a cyberattack should occur, they warn.

8. Private networks might be used to launch a cyberattack.

If companies don't properly secure their networks, their systems may be taken over by a botnet and used in a cyberwarfare incident. For example, two-thirds of the computers used to launch DoS attacks against Estonia were inside the United States although they were controlled by Russian hactivists, experts say. Typically, the machines used in a cyberattack are not owned by the attacker. Most companies don't realize they are vulnerable to having their network assets being used for cyberwarfare.

9. Don't ignore the insider threat.

One of the biggest vulnerabilities in networks is from insiders with legitimate access to computers and data. The same threat exists in cyberwarfare. One way this threat might occur is for the enemy to kidnap a family member of a network operator and then force the network operator to install malware. That's one reason government agencies and private companies running critical infrastructure need adequate security controls over their employees.

10. Cyberwarfare is warfare.

Looking at cyberwarfare as separate from traditional warfare is a mistake; it has to be tied to physical warfare, experts say. For example, an enemy might blow up a building on the ground that disables a satellite, which in turn disables Internet access. In a cyberwar, network attacks will likely be combined with physical attacks. So protecting against cyberwarfare needs to be considered as part of a broader military strategy.

10 things you didn't know about cyberwarfare - Network World

 

[mshoaib61]

After sea, land and air warfare, traditional arch rivals India and Pakistan are now facing each other in another arena. With evolution of technology over the period another kind of war has been started by Indians with Israeli help against Pakistan since last few years and that is Cyber warfare.

Cyber warfare is complex, more penetrating and detrimental than conventional warfare, fought on cyberspace using different tactics like Cyber espionage, Web vandalism, Gathering data, Distributed Denial-of-Service Attacks, Equipment disruption, attacking critical infrastructure, Compromised Counterfeit Hardware etc. The Internet security company McAfee stated in their 2007 annual report that approximately 120 countries have been developing ways to use the Internet as a weapon and target financial markets, government computer systems and utilities.

Like any conventional threat, cyber warfare is rather new battle field for Pakistani government and people alike. India has all the reasons to use this as a weapon against Pakistan, but more recently Israel has joined hands with Indians in this war against Pakistan.

Propaganda, Cyber espionage, Web vandalism and information gathering are known cyber threats for Pakistani security institutes and government offices. Now there are reports emerging that Indian and Israelis are taking these known cyber threats to next level by using money, talent and technology to defame Pakistan and its nuclear program.

How eagerly Indian wanted to gain an edge in cyber warfare technology is evident from what Indian Naval Chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta told StartPost; “The Indian Armed Forces are increasingly investing in networked operations, both singly and a joint fashion. We cannot, therefore, afford to be vulnerable to cyber attacks. Information Technology is our country’s known strength and it would be in our interest to leverage this strength in developing a formidable ‘offensive’ and ‘defensive’ cyber warfare capability. Harnessing the gene pool available in academia, private industry and the younger generation of talented individuals is imperative,”

Statement of Indian Naval Chief is a further endorsement of our assessment about Indian designs against Pakistan and its security establishment. Clearly India has offensive cyber warfare plans. Naturally these plans will be against Pakistan (as the history of both the countries proves), although Indian military establishment and political leadership used Chinese threat as an excuse for introducing new war tactics and systems in Subcontinent.

The Indian Army conducted a war game called Divine Matrix in March 2009.

The most interesting aspect of this exercise was the scenario simulated by Indian military in which China launches a nuclear attack on India somewhere in 2017. The purpose of the exercise was to describe that how China will launch a cyber attack before actual nuclear attack to take on India. On the other hand Chinese were astonished by the simulated Chinese nuclear attack on India. “We are surprised by the report. Leaders of China and India had already reached at consensus that the two countries will not pose a threat to each other but rather treat each other as partners.” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang expressed his views on Indian cyber warfare exercise.

In reality both China and India have been in negotiations since 2004 to boost their economic trade and cooperation in various other fields including defense. Both countries have also conducted military exercises as well. In the backdrop of all this and renewed cooperation between two countries it is very unlikely China would go for a war and that too a nuclear one whereas Pakistan is the only country against whom India has any possibility to go for a nuclear war over any of multiple disputes like Indian water aggression against Pakistan and Kashmir issue.

Limited cyber skirmishes have already taken place between Indian and Pakistan in 2008 when a group of Indian hackers defaced Pakistani website of ministry of oil and gas, government of Pakistan. Pakistani hackers in retaliation defaced many Indian websites. After these counter cyber attacks now Indians are looking to adopt “joint fashion” for cyber warfare against Pakistan with help of Israel.

According to reports Israel recently established a cyber task force for cyber warfare against Islam and Pakistan, besides harming Palestinian cause. A budget of $ 1,50,000,00 has been also allocated to this force to carry out various digital espionage and information gathering operations from various strategic offices of government of Pakistan.

Breaching network security is one aspect of all this cyber war against Pakistan. In a new development Israel has also setup a huge workforce of writers on internet and is still increasing its strength by appealing more persons to join in. Primary task of this force would be to wage propaganda war against Pakistan and its nuclear weapons and armed forces.

Israelis are doing it since long time. Hebrew websites and magazines have been targeting Pakistan by orchestrating near to impossible scenarios about Pakistan’s nukes to deceive world that these are going to fall in the hands of Al-Qaeda. Israelnationalnews.com, IsraelNN.com, and Arutz-7’s Hebrew newsmagazine are few to name among these media outfits where Israelis are spiting their venom against Pakistan.

Israeli government first tested these cyber propaganda tools during operation Cast Lead (brutal military operation in Gaza in 2008) when bloggers, surfers and writers were asked by ministry of foreign affairs of Israel, through GIYUS.ORG - Give Israel Your United Support (Give Israel You United Support), to promote words like “holocaust”, “promised land” and “murder of jews” on social networking and blogging websites like Face book, Twitter, MySpace, BlogSpot, wordpress etc. Israeli government went to an extent to give written messages which were to be posted on aforementioned websites as if they were personal responses or views of citizen of any country.

Israeli lobbies in US and UK waged similar agenda against Pakistan’s nuclear program in the past through satellite news channels (like BBC, FOX) and news papers (New York Time, Washington Post). New tactics of using social networking and blogging websites on internet has certainly more probability to shape people’s opinion about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons as unsafe. This campaign was also launched from US and Western media when operation Rah-e-Rast was initiated in Swat and Malakand region. The target in that particular campaign was to defame Pakistani government and security institutions as inept and incapable to save the nation from terrorists.

Israeli cyber operation was resolutely counter by young Palestinian bloggers by posting millions of pictures and footages from GAZA over the internet. These photos and footages revealed evil deeds committed by Israeli forces in Gaza during operation Cast Lead. However these Israeli and Indian cyber evangelists were successful in scaring ordinary masses in and outside Pakistan by posing Taliban threat to taking over Islamabad out of proportion. The real intention behind all this Taliban Hoopla was to tell the world that Pakistani nuclear weapons are about to fall into Taliban’s hand.

Like their Israeli counterpart, Indian government also took part active part in this campaign against Pakistan. Indian premier went on saying that some of Pakistani nuclear installations are already in Taliban control. This further sanctioned scare created by “paid” surfer of internet.

Israel helps India against Pakistan and Indians are also waging this propaganda war against Pakistan but on different axes. India’s current focus, after Pakistan’s security establishment, is to deceive and confuse locals of Pakistan’s Northern Areas where Pakistan is about to build three mega dams to fulfill its needs. Indian think tanks, websites and discussion forums are constantly pointing out that Pakistan is going to build dams in disputed territory in DiaMir, Bonji etc. whereas the matter of fact is India is building dams illegally on Pakistani rivers whereas Pakistani plans are all about Pakistan’s own river.

Apart from all this Cyber espionage, Web vandalism, propaganda enemies of Pakistan are adopting more complex to beat cyber operations like information gathering and equipment disruption. US pressurized Pakistan to take dubious Permissive Action Link boxes to be put on its nuclear program to prevent “unauthorized” detonation of bombs but Pakistan quite sensibly refused these locks which are said to be impossible to beat. This is one example of extent to which Pakistan’s enemies are pushing against its nuclear program in Cyber warfare.

Lethality of cyber warfare become palpable by the fact that till April 2009, pentagon has spent more than 100 million dollars in 6 months to fight against cyber attacks on its different systems. Money spent on propaganda operations are apart from this.

Pakistan must build a dedicated professional force to fight against all Cyber warfare tactics. A special wing inside armed forces must also be raised to counter advanced Cyber threat from Israel, India and US.

By Farzana Shah


India-Israel cyberwar against Pakistan?s nuclear program Pak Alert Press

 

[Destructlord]

like the recent Iranian attack on Twitter

Sir, they weren't Iranian cyber army! Iranian cyber army knows how to use correct english grammar! And in fact they won't come and say: We are Iranian cyber army! That just stupid! One of the most important aspects of a cyber army is to work low-profile and gather the information... like China!

 

[unicorn148]

pakisthan doesnt have a proper super computer so how can it have a proper Cyber Warfare capabilities

 

[Sinnerman108]

pakisthan doesnt have a proper super computer so how can it have a proper Cyber Warfare capabilities

this merely suggests that you need to find out what a super computer is.

As I have said b4, this is an extremely complicated science and you will be at a loss if sword fish and some dark web sites has been your source of inspiration.

 

[mshoaib61]

There are supercomputers in Pakistan. There are some in educational institutes like NUST, there are also supercomputers present within Atomic Energy and related research institutes. Throughout the nuclear history of Pakistan, we have been using supercomputers. Also, oil and gas and geological survey companies have also been using these supercomputers. Now the supercomputer of yesteryears is less powerful than alot of desktop computers of today. I guess with the advent of parallel processing, anyone can build with supercomputers.

 

[Kompromat]

A good hacker does not just do havoc and get exposed , he /they will rather stay inside and keep doing their work

 

[Kompromat]

I think you guys should read this article:



Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jet Project

By SIOBHAN GORMAN, AUGUST COLE and YOCHI DREAZEN

WASHINGTON -- Computer spies have broken into the Pentagon's $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project -- the Defense Department's costliest weapons program ever -- according to current and former government officials familiar with the attacks.

Similar incidents have also breached the Air Force's air-traffic-control system in recent months, these people say. In the case of the fighter-jet program, the intruders were able to copy and siphon off several terabytes of data related to design and electronics systems, officials say, potentially making it easier to defend against the craft.

The latest intrusions provide new evidence that a battle is heating up between the U.S. and potential adversaries over the data networks that tie the world together. The revelations follow a recent Wall Street Journal report that computers used to control the U.S. electrical-distribution system, as well as other infrastructure, have also been infiltrated by spies abroad.

Attacks like these -- or U.S. awareness of them -- appear to have escalated in the past six months, said one former official briefed on the matter. "There's never been anything like it," this person said, adding that other military and civilian agencies as well as private companies are affected. "It's everything that keeps this country going."

Many details couldn't be learned, including the specific identity of the attackers, and the scope of the damage to the U.S. defense program, either in financial or security terms. In addition, while the spies were able to download sizable amounts of data related to the jet-fighter, they weren't able to access the most sensitive material, which is stored on computers not connected to the Internet.

Former U.S. officials say the attacks appear to have originated in China. However it can be extremely difficult to determine the true origin because it is easy to mask identities online.

A Pentagon report issued last month said that the Chinese military has made "steady progress" in developing online-warfare techniques. China hopes its computer skills can help it compensate for an underdeveloped military, the report said.



HACKING VICTIM: Spies are said to have stolen data on the F-35 Lightning II fighter. Here, the plane undergoes flight testing over Texas.

The Chinese Embassy said in a statement that China "opposes and forbids all forms of cyber crimes." It called the Pentagon's report "a product of the Cold War mentality" and said the allegations of cyber espionage are "intentionally fabricated to fan up China threat sensations."

he U.S. has no single government or military office responsible for cyber security. The Obama administration is likely to soon propose creating a senior White House computer-security post to coordinate policy and a new military command that would take the lead in protecting key computer networks from intrusions, according to senior officials.

The Bush administration planned to spend about $17 billion over several years on a new online-security initiative and the Obama administration has indicated it could expand on that. Spending on this scale would represent a potential windfall for government agencies and private contractors at a time of falling budgets. While specialists broadly agree that the threat is growing, there is debate about how much to spend in defending against attacks.

The Joint Strike Fighter, also known as the F-35 Lightning II, is the costliest and most technically challenging weapons program the Pentagon has ever attempted. The plane, led by Lockheed Martin Corp., relies on 7.5 million lines of computer code, which the Government Accountability Office said is more than triple the amount used in the current top Air Force fighter.

Six current and former officials familiar with the matter confirmed that the fighter program had been repeatedly broken into. The Air Force has launched an investigation.

Pentagon officials declined to comment directly on the Joint Strike Fighter compromises. Pentagon systems "are probed daily," said Air Force Lt. Col. Eric Butterbaugh, a Pentagon spokesman. "We aggressively monitor our networks for intrusions and have appropriate procedures to address these threats." U.S. counterintelligence chief Joel Brenner, speaking earlier this month to a business audience in Austin, Texas, warned that fighter-jet programs have been compromised.

Foreign allies are helping develop the aircraft, which opens up other avenues of attack for spies online. At least one breach appears to have occurred in Turkey and another country that is a U.S. ally, according to people familiar with the matter.

Joint Strike Fighter test aircraft are already flying, and money to build the jet is included in the Pentagon's budget for this year and next.

Computer systems involved with the program appear to have been infiltrated at least as far back as 2007, according to people familiar with the matter. Evidence of penetrations continued to be discovered at least into 2008. The intruders appear to have been interested in data about the design of the plane, its performance statistics and its electronic systems, former officials said.

The intruders compromised the system responsible for diagnosing a plane's maintenance problems during flight, according to officials familiar with the matter. However, the plane's most vital systems -- such as flight controls and sensors -- are physically isolated from the publicly accessible Internet, they said.

The intruders entered through vulnerabilities in the networks of two or three contractors helping to build the high-tech fighter jet, according to people who have been briefed on the matter. Lockheed Martin is the lead contractor on the program, and Northrop Grumman Corp. and BAE Systems PLC also play major roles in its development.

Lockheed Martin and BAE declined to comment. Northrop referred questions to Lockheed.

The spies inserted technology that encrypts the data as it's being stolen; as a result, investigators can't tell exactly what data has been taken. A former Pentagon official said the military carried out a thorough cleanup.

Fighting online attacks like these is particularly difficult because defense contractors may have uneven network security, but the Pentagon is reliant on them to perform sensitive work. In the past year, the Pentagon has stepped up efforts to work with contractors to improve computer security.

Investigators traced the penetrations back with a "high level of certainty" to known Chinese Internet protocol, or IP, addresses and digital fingerprints that had been used for attacks in the past, said a person briefed on the matter.

As for the intrusion into the Air Force's air-traffic control systems, three current and former officials familiar with the incident said it occurred in recent months. It alarmed U.S. national security officials, particularly at the National Security Agency, because the access the spies gained could have allowed them to interfere with the system, said one former official. The danger is that intruders might find weaknesses that could be exploited to confuse or damage U.S. military craft.

Military officials declined to comment on the incident.

In his speech in Austin, Mr. Brenner, the U.S. counterintelligence chief, issued a veiled warning about threats to air traffic in the context of Chinese infiltration of U.S. networks. He spoke of his concerns about the vulnerability of U.S. air traffic control systems to cyber infiltration, adding "our networks are being mapped." He went on to warn of a potential situation where "a fighter pilot can't trust his radar."
—Evan Perez contributed to this article.

Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com, August Cole at august.cole@dowjones.com and Yochi Dreazen at yochi.dreazen@wsj.com

Source: Computer Spies Breach Fighter-Jet Project - WSJ.com

 

[bilal1219]

Already posted on this Forum Bro. but thaanks for posting it again

 

[S-A-B-E-R->]

hey there is another solution blow up a nuke 65 to 30 miles above the continent sized target and u have an entire nation paralized...also pakistan is not vournable to any syber attack...we dont hae a centerlized control unit for our cyber space...also most of our defence hardware is only accustic controlled thus normal cyber attackes dont affect us...cherros

 

[Kompromat]

hey there is another solution blow up a nuke 65 to 30 miles above the continent sized target and u have an entire nation paralized...also pakistan is not vournable to any syber attack...we dont hae a centerlized control unit for our cyber space...also most of our defence hardware is only accustic controlled thus normal cyber attackes dont affect us...cherros

how do you come up with that ?

and what exactly do you mean by paralizing a whole nation by exploding a nuke on that height ?

 

[Vassnti]

how do you come up with that ?

and what exactly do you mean by paralizing a whole nation by exploding a nuke on that height ?

A high-altitude nuclear detonation produces an immediate flux of gamma rays from the nuclear reactions within the device. These photons in turn produce high energy free electrons by Compton scattering at altitudes between (roughly) 20 and 40 km. These electrons are then trapped in the Earth’s magnetic field, giving rise to an oscillating electric current. This current is asymmetric in general and gives rise to a rapidly rising radiated electromagnetic field called an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Because the electrons are trapped essentially simultaneously, a very large electromagnetic source radiates coherently.
The pulse can easily span continent-sized areas, and this radiation can affect systems on land, sea, and air. The first recorded EMP incident accompanied a high-altitude nuclear test over the South Pacific and resulted in power system failures as far away as Hawaii. A large device detonated at 400–500 km over Kansas would affect all of CONUS. The signal from such an event extends to the visual horizon as seen from the burst point.

The EMP produced by the Compton electrons typically lasts for about 1 microsecond, and this signal is called HEMP. In addition to the prompt EMP, scattered gammas and inelastic gammas produced by weapon neutrons produce an “intermediate time” signal from about 1 microsecond to 1 second. The energetic debris entering the ionosphere produces ionization and heating of the E-region. In turn, this causes the geomagnetic field to “heave,” producing a “late-time” magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) EMP generally called a heave signal.


Initially, the plasma from the weapon is slightly conducting; the geomagnetic field cannot penetrate this volume and is displaced as a result. This impulsive distortion of the geomagnetic field was observed worldwide in the case of the STARFISH test. To be sure, the size of the signal from this process is not large, but systems connected to long lines (e.g., power lines, telephone wires, and tracking wire antennas) are at risk because of the large size of the induced current. The additive effects of the MHD-EMP can cause damage to unprotected civilian and military systems that depend on or use long-line cables. Small, isolated, systems tend to be unaffected.
Military systems must survive all aspects of the EMP, from the rapid spike of the early time events to the longer duration heave signal. One of the principal problems in assuring such survival is the lack of test data from actual high-altitude nuclear explosions. Only a few such experiments were carried out before the LTBT took effect, and at that time the theoretical understanding of the phenomenon of HEMP was relatively poor. No high-altitude tests have been conducted by the United States since 1963. In addition to the more familiar high-yield tests mentioned above, three small devices were exploded in the Van Allen belts as part of Project Argus. That experiment was intended to explore the methods by which electrons were trapped and traveled along magnetic field lines.

 

[Vassnti]

Perhaps your looking at cyber attacks from the wrong end BB, its exciting to contemplate hacking a plane in flight to turn off weapon systems but the most vunerable part of the chain is the logistics side not the weapon side.

Imagine trying to move troops about to respond to a threat, get them suplies etc when the local power grid, phone system and the pumps at the local sewag station have all been hacked.

Traffic lights gone, street lights gone, roads flooded with sewage, chaos from people out on the streets trying to find out whats going on. No ability to broadcast to get people inside, no phones or radio to recall people that are off base. There are all sorts of ways to make life hard with out hitting secured military computers.

Though even "secured comunication" may not be as safe as people belive. Supposedly 128 bit encryption was unhackable.

And now the next best encryption, the KASUMI system -- a 128-bit A5/3 algorithm implemented across 3G networks -- has been cracked as well. Where as A5/1 was brought down by 2 terabyte time-memory tradeoff attack tables generated over a couple months on an NVIDIA GPU cluster (via CUDA code) early last year, the effort used the sophisticated, "related-key sandwich attack" to crack the more advanced algorithm in only 2 hours. A paper on the work is published here (PDF).

DailyTech - Researchers Crack 3G GSM 128-bit Encryption in Under 2 Hours