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CYBER WARS
US boots up new unified cybersecurity center

SKorean spy chief blames NKorea for cyber attacks: reports
South Korea's spy chief has blamed North Korea's telecommunications ministry for cyber attacks that briefly crippled US and South Korean government and commercial websites in July, reports said Friday. It was the first time the National Intelligence Service had named a specific body as the user of the Internet protocol (IP) address linked to the attacks, Yonhap news agency and local newspapers reported. "Our search into the route of the attacks on South Korean and US sites found a line coming from China," intelligence service chief Won Sei-Hoon told a parliamentary session Thursday, according to Yonhap. His remarks were quoted by lawmakers who attended the private meeting.

"The line was found to be on the IP that the North Korean Ministry of Post and Telecommunications is using on rent (from China)," Won was quoted as saying. He reportedly refused to comment further, saying that to "answer in specifics would risk revealing national strategies." Intelligence officials refused to confirm the reports. The National Intelligence Service had said in July that North Korea was a prime suspect in the "distributed denial of service" attacks designed to swamp selected websites with traffic.

The attackers infected tens of thousands of "zombie" computers with a virus which programmed them to send a flood of requests for website access. But the origin of the attacks was never confirmed, with one Vietnamese expert saying they originated from a master server in Britain. Experts say North Korea maintains elite hacker units. The threat of cyber warfare by its neighbour has prompted South Korea to establish a specific military command, which will be active by next year. Last week Lieutenant General Jeffrey Remington, commander of the US Air Force in South Korea, called on Washington and Seoul to take "aggressive steps" to safeguard their military computer networks from increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks.

by Staff Writers
 Washington (AFP) Oct 30, 2009
 US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano cut the ribbon on Friday on a state-of-the-art unified command center for government cybersecurity efforts.

The National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) brings together various government organizations responsible for protecting cyber networks and infrastructure and private sector partners.

"This will be a 24/7, 365-day-a-year facility to improve our national efforts to prepare and respond to threats and incidents affecting critical information technology and communications infrastructure," Napolitano said.

She said the NCCIC will serve as the "central repository" for the cyber protection efforts of the civilian side of the federal government and its private sector partners.

Attending the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the NCCIC was the head of the US military's "cyber command," Lieutenant General Keith Alexander, director of the super-secret National Security Agency (NSA).

The high-security new NCCIC facility is located in an Arlington, Virginia, office building and includes a long narrow room dominated by giant wall-mounted video screens displaying maps and threat data. Facing the screens are dozens of computer work stations with multiple screens.

"Securing America's cyber infrastructure requires a coordinated and flexible system to detect threats and communicate protective measures to our federal, state, local, and private sector partners and the public," Napolitano said.

"Consolidating our cyber and communications operations centers within the NCCIC will enhance our ability to effectively mitigate risks and respond to threats," she added.

NCCIC combines two Homeland Security operational organizations: the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) and the National Coordinating Center for Telecommunications (NCC).

US-CERT is a public-private partnership aimed to protecting and defending cyber infrastructure while the NCC is the operational arm of the National Communications System.

NCCIC will also integrate the National Cybersecurity Center (NCSC), which coordinates operations among the six largest federal cyber centers.

Napolitano, whose department has received the green light to hire up to 1,000 cybersecurity experts over the next three years, stressed the private sector participation in the NCCIC, noting they will have "offices in the same space."

US-CERT currently partners with a number of private sector companies such as telecommunications firms and others in monitoring cyber threats.

The opening of the NCCIC was the culmination of what has been dubbed "National Cybersecurity Awareness Month."

No single agency is currently charged with ensuring government information technology security and lawmakers have called for creating a powerful national cybersecurity advisor reporting directly to the president.

President Barack Obama has made cybersecurity a top priority and announced in May that he would name a "cyber czar" to defend against criminal, espionage and hacker attacks on US government and private computer networks.

Obama has not yet named the "cyber czar" but the 2010 Homeland Security Act that he signed on Wednesday included 397 million dollars for cybersecurity.

US government websites come under attack on a daily basis, according to the Department of Homeland Security, with the threats ranging from teenage hackers to criminal gangs to foreign governments.

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CYBER WARS
Computer game deployed to combat phishing
 Washington (UPI) Oct 28, 2009
State Department employees are being encouraged to play a computer game to familiarize themselves with the global threat posed by phishing, an increasingly sophisticated form of identity fraud that can entice unsuspecting computer users into divulging sensitive personal information. The game, called Phil by Pittsburgh-based developer Wombat Security Technologies, is designed especially ... read more






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