Germany reveals secret techie soldier unit, new cyberweapons

Main building of the University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We have ways of making you pwned

By John Leyden • Get more from this author  8th June 2012 11:29 GMT

CyCon 2012 Germany has confirmed that its military maintains an operational cyberwarfare unit with offensive capabilities.

The admission, which appeared in parliamentary documents published on Tuesday, gave no details of the size of the unit much less any operations that it might have run. However documents delivered to the German federal defence committee did reveal that the unit has been operating for six years since 2006, a year before the cyber-attack on Estonia and four years before the discovery of the infamous Stuxnet worm.

http://ds.serving-sys.com/BurstingRes/Site-27237/Type-2/e53ce8c1-9790-4f5e-b89e-03b2539b45a7.swf“The initial capacity to operate in hostile networks has been achieved,” the papers explain, adding that the Computer Network Operations Unit had carried out “simulations” of attacks in a “closed laboratory environment”, German press agency DPA reports.

The unit reports to the joint forces strategic intelligence command. Legislators reportedly expressed surprise at the existence of the unit and questioned whether military commanders had the legal authority to launch attacks on foreign networks.

Prof Dr Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, a professor of law at European University Viadrina Frankfurt in Germany, told El Reg that the armed forces of many nations are probably building up an offensive cyber capability. The only difference is that Germany and (also recently) the Obama administration is the US are publicly talking about it.

“The German MoD see a potential in having an offensive cyber-op capability as well as an ability to defend critical infrastructures”, most notably military systems, Dr Heintschel von Heinegg explained.

Cyber warfare

Photo: Illustrative photo: Reuters and Marc Israel Sellem

Cyber Warfare is fast becoming a dominant element in every developed country’s military arsenal.

By JPOST EDITORIAL

06/07/2012 23:27

Judging from the slew of news over the past week or so, the field of cyber warfare is fast becoming a dominant element in every developed country’s military arsenal.

In a span of just a few days there has been a flurry of news items related to cyber warfare: the anti-virus firm Kaspersky discovered that Iran’s nuclear program was struck again, this time by Flame, which effectively turns every computer it infects into a spy; The New York Timesreported that the US and Israel were behind the Stuxnet worm, which also attacked Iran’s nuclear program; NATO held its Fourth International Conference on Cyber Conflict; and Israel hosted its own conference on cyber warfare at Tel Aviv University.

Indeed, there is good reason for the rising interest – and deployment – of cyber warfare. After all, there are many appealing aspects to cyber warfare.

Instead of wreaking mass destruction and snuffing out human life, countries can instead attack virtual targets in cyberspace. An aggressor state does not need to expose its own troops to the dangers of conventional or unconventional warfare, thus avoiding casualties and the difficulty Western societies have coping with these casualties. And since cyber weapons can be deployed anonymously from a distance, the aggressor often does not risk political fallout let alone absorbing a retaliatory attack.

Indeed, cyber warfare seems so bloodless and “clean” that there hardly appear to be any real ethical dilemmas with which to grapple.

Just War Theory, based on Judeo-Christian moral principles and Western moral philosophy, is concerned with limiting human casualties and physical damage.

When warfare is waged using a piece of code against some intangible objects, without directly causing casualties or physical damage, the anthropocentric principles of Just War Theory hardly seem to apply.

Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to claim that cyber warfare can be conducted without a consideration of its moral limits. For instance, if it knocks out electricity and the refrigeration necessary to protect supplies, even a modest cyber attack could lead to starvation and the suffering of thousands of innocent.

Iran Bans Banks From Sending Statements To ‘Foreign’ E-Mail Addresses

Many Iranians have complained of disruptions to Gmail and other “foreign” e-mail services in recent months.

May 08, 2012

Iran’s minister of communications and information technology, Reza Taghipour, has sent a letter to the head of the country’s Central Bank, Mahmud Bahmani, asking him to instruct banks to refrain from sending bank statements to e-mail addresses administered by foreign providers.
In his letter, Taghipour says that banned foreign e-mail providers include Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, and MSN.
The communications minister has called on banks to only accept national e-mail addresses from customers when they open accounts.
Taghipour has requested that banks provide access to the Internet for customers to be able to create national e-mail accounts at their premises.
The move appears to be aimed at forcing citizens to join the national e-mail system, which many Iranians have been reluctant to use.
Some Iranian websites have reported that the use of the national e-mail is obligatory for those working for the government and state institutions.

The boomerang effect: Could American cyberweapon be turned against us?

Written By Jeremy A. Kaplan, Alec Liu Published March 31, 2012

FoxNews.com

The 1983 movie “Wargames” depicted a dystopian vision of a computer-controlled armageddon. Today, cyberwar is very much a reality. (United Artists)

Viruses like Stuxnet and Duqu are the atom bombs of cyberwarfare, experts say, a key tool in U.S. and foreign military arsenals. But some worry that this new generation of digital weapons could be co-opted by enemy forces — and used against their creators.

After the Stuxnet virus hit Iran‘s nuclear power plants in 2010, it was collected and disseminated, falling into the hands of hackers and code-crafters worldwide. Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism chief, is confident that the U.S. wrote the code — and may have allowed the U.S.’s greatest cyberweapon ever to leak into enemy hands.

“It got loose because there was a mistake,” Clarke said in an interview with the Smithsonian. ”And if you’re a computer whiz you can take it apart and you can say, ‘Oh, let’s change this over here, let’s change that over there.’ Now I’ve got a really sophisticated weapon. So thousands of people around the world have it and are playing with it.”

SUMMARY

The Stuxnet malware was the culmination of a vast technical and espionage effort that had one target in mind: Iran’s nuclear plans. Its success set back the Iranian program for years.

July 13, 2010: Stuxnet is discovered, though few realize what exactly it is.

Nov. 26, 2010: Experts begin to fully understand the implications of the malware.

Oct. 14, 2011: Duqu, the first clone of the Stuxnet virus, is discovered by Symantec researchers.

Feb. 14, 2012: Iran finally disables the Stuxnet virus, experts say.

“And if I’m right, the best cyberweapon the United States has ever developed, it then gave the world for free.”

Call it the boomerang effect — the weapon you designed to hit others can come right back at you.

And while many still disagree that the U.S. was responsible for Stuxnet, often citing Israel as a prime suspect, the software is now unquestionably out in the wild. What if someone used it against us? Can viruses in general be turned against their masters?

Yes and no, explained Liam O Murchu, a manager of operations at Symantec Security Response, where the firm has tirelessly analyzed Stuxnet and variants such as Duqu.

“From a practical view of what you can actually do, it would be very hard to take Stuxnet, reimage it, and target someone new without the source code,” O Murchu told FoxNews.com. “So from that point of view, it’s not so dangerous to have Stuxnet out in the wild right now. Even if you get your hands on it, you don’t have the source code to refashion it to do something else.”

Retired general and former CIA chief Michael Hayden thinks the issue is far more black and white.

“There are those out there who can take a look at this … and maybe even attempt to turn it to their own purposes,” he said in an interview with the CBS television show “60 Minutes” earlier this month.

“The best cyberweapon the US has ever developed, it then gave the world for free.”

Anonymous hackers getting ‘more disruptive’, could cause power outage

Image via Wikipedia

February 21, 2012 5:15pm

United States security officials are sounded the warning against possible power outages brought about by cyberattacks from hacker – and hacktivist – groups like Anonymous.

US National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander gave this assessment to the White House and other private sessions, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Citing people familiar with the gatherings, the WSJ report said that, while Alexander has not publicly voiced such concerns, he has warned about an emerging ability by cyberattackers to disable or even damage computer networks.

So far, Anonymous – and groups allied with it – had concentrated mainly on exposing data or knocking sites offline, usually for a cause.

But the WSJ noted that Alexander’s warning may show a growing federal concern over the capabilities of Anonymous, which had previously launched high-profile cyberassaults against U.S. government and corporate targets including Visa, MasterCard and eBay Inc.‘s PayPal service.

Operation White North: Anonymous Demands Public Safety Minister Vic Toews Resign, E-Snooping Bill C-30 Scrapped

The Huffington Post Canada   Lauren Strapagiel

Get updates from Lauren Strapagiel

Vikileaks has been shut down, but Public Safety Minister Vic Toews isn’t out of hot water yet.

Hacker group Anonymous has posted a video demanding the resignation of Toews and calling for the controversial online surveillance bill C-30 to be scrapped.

The video’s message targets Toews for reintroducing bill C-30 despite backlash from internet users and privacy advocates.

MCIS Yearbook 2012

These case studies underscore the ability of social networking to do three things: (a) reflect opinion trends and channel mass political action; (b) provide actionable tactical intelligence; and (c) enable highly effective —and highly controversial— security operations against targeted groups. The paper is published in the 2012 Intelligence Studies Yearbook

http://www.rieas.gr/images/mcis2012.pdf

While the world braces for e-threats, India moves slow

Image via Wikipedia

6 Feb, 2012, 10.58AM IST, Rajat Pandit,TNN

MUNICH: After the first four “real” battlefields of land, air, sea and now increasingly space, India needs to get very serious about the virtual front as well. The country should begin planning a full-fledged military cyber command, instead of the current piecemeal and disjointed steps to bolster cyber-security, grappling as it already is with incessant online espionage and other attacks from China, Pakistan and others.

This was the clear takeaway from the deliberations on cyber-security and cyber-warfare in the high-profile Munich Security Conference on Sunday, even though India hardly figured in the discussions.

Experts said the emergence of “cyber-weapons” like the Stuxnet software ‘worm’ that was used to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programme over a year ago, had changed the entire security ballgame, almost on par with the use of nuclear bombs for the first time in 1945.

Twitter users are being tricked into joining in cyber attacks on U.S. government – and could be jailed

• Links turn any PC into an unwitting part of attack
• Part of ‘hacktivist’ group Anonymous‘s cyber attacks
• Retaliation for U.S. strike at file-sharing site

Last updated at 3:17 PM on 20th January 2012

Links being forwarded via Twitter actually make people’s PCs part of Anonymous’s ‘denial of service’ attacks against U.S. government sites and anti-piracy organisations

Hacker group Anonymous have become a cult hit on Twitter, with 249,000 followers – but security experts Sophos warn that fans, are being tricked into taking part in its attacks.

Links being forwarded via Twitter actually make people’s PCs part of Anonymous’s ‘denial of service’ attacks against U.S. government sites and anti-piracy organisations.

The links are being forwarded as part of Anonymous’s recent ‘Operation Megaupload’ – a retaliation for the U.S. government ‘taking down’ a file-sharing site.

They look like ordinary web links, but launch cyber attacks from whatever PC you access them on.

People who click the links unwittingly become part of Anonymous’s attacks – and hit any website that the ‘hacktivist’ group chooses.

It’s a change of tactics for Anonymous – and security experts warn that claiming you clicked on a link by accident may not be a defense.

The attacks, a ‘denial of service’ attack, rely on thousands of PCs sending information to sites at once to crash them.

Turkish hackers Warn Of Cyber War

by Lee J Published January 8th, 2012

Recently the main media has picked up a story about some Turkish hackers who have been hacking the french.

In one of the latest attacks by a group know as AYYILDIZ who has over 12,000 total defacement’s on h-zone has hacked and defaced a Turkish website with one clear message, they are ready for cyber war.

The defacement which has the below message and video attached can be currently seen on the website or on h-zone mirrors

We are Turkey’s Cyber Army.

For the sake of our country , we will continue fighting against the enemies in virtual world as we do in real world under all heavy circumstances such as winter,cold and snow..

We are never tired and we will never give up !We always support each other and we are always together in good times and bad times.We will declare Cyber War against all the nations having negative ideas about Turkey and our religion Islam.If you insist on these ideas ,get ready for cyber war !We aren’t afraid of anybody and we will give our answer back where necessary.

AYYILDIZ TEAM