Slashdot Log In
US Cyber Command Wants Greater Attack Mentality
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Apr 02, 2008 12:41 PM
from the cyber-decker-hacker-commands dept.
from the cyber-decker-hacker-commands dept.
superglaze writes "Lieutenant General Robert J Elder, Jr, a senior figure in US Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER), has told ZDNet UK that communication issues are hampering the division's co-ordination. 'IT people set up traditional IT networks with the idea of making them secure to operate and defend,' said Elder. 'The traditional security approach is to put up barriers, like firewalls — it's a defense thing — but everyone in an operations network is also part of the [attack] force. We're trying to move away from clandestine operations. We're looking for real physics — a bigger bang resulting in collateral damage.'"
Related Stories
[+]
IT: US Cyber Command Reveals Plans To Hit Back At Cyber Threats 95 comments
CNet News.com is reporting that the Air Force's Cyber Command has just as much interest in offense as defense. "Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER), a US military unit set up in September 2007 to fight in cyberspace, is due to become fully operational in the autumn under the aegis of the US Eighth Air Force. Lieutenant general Robert J. Elder Jr., who commands the Eighth Air Force's Barksdale base, told ZDNet.co.uk at the Cyber Warfare Conference 2008 that Air Force is interested in developing its capabilities to attack enemy forces as well as defend critical national infrastructure. "
[+]
Air Force Suspends Cyber Command Program 166 comments
AFCyber writes "The Air Force on Monday suspended all efforts related to development of a program to become the dominant service in cyberspace, according to knowledgeable sources. Top Air Force officials put a halt to all activities related to the establishment of the Cyber Command, a provisional unit that is currently part of the 8th Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, sources told Nextgov.
An internal Air Force e-mail obtained by Nextgov said, 'Transfers of manpower and resources, including activation and re-assignment of units, shall be halted.' Establishment of the Cyber Command will be delayed until new senior Air Force leaders, including Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz, sworn in today, have time to make a final decision on the scope and mission of the command."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Fantastic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fantastic (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Fantastic (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Fantastic (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Truth in Naming (Score:5, Insightful)
The organization is call Cyber Defense Command for a reason, because they know that they should be "defending". If they were honest in their naming then perhaps it would be call Cyber Attack Command. Hmmm, I wonder what other countries would think of that.... It's probably the same reason that our Department of Defense isn't call the Department of Preemptive Strikes. It was called The Department of War until 1947. I know some here will say "the best defense is a good offense", but when you have organizations with "an attack mentality" they will always find someone and some reason to attack. War without End.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you launch a successful attack upon another county, chances are that attack can be readily mimicked and launched against your own public infrastructure. If you attempt to establish a defence against that attack you are back to square one.
Most attacks on the internet, have targeted e
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Cyber?? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry, what? All I can picture is a pimply teenager sitting in front a flickering screen, typing "Wanna cyber????" into his chat field. I have no idea how to exploit cybering to achieve military objectives. Maybe they want to paralyze the target's networks by getting all lonely teenagers to respond to mass cyber requests?
Re:Cyber?? (Score:4, Insightful)
You can only picture a teenager because for you, the implicit noun modified by cyber- is sex - arguably the default focus of a teen's attention. For the military, the implicit noun is war - that is the default focus of their attention. It is clear that cyber- is an adjective prefix that indicates computation. What it means when the noun is implied is in the mind of the beholder.
Parent
Just what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Just what we need (Score:5, Informative)
Off the top of my head, I can think of 4:
1998: US launches cruise missiles at Sudan and Afghanistan
1999: US launches airstrikes against Yugoslavia to get it out of Kosovo
2001: US provides air support to forces in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban
2003: US invades Iraq
Parent
Re:Just what we need (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
-ellie
As silly as it sounds, (Score:2)
Translation (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Translation (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Hello Citizen (Score:5, Funny)
Your ISP has identified you as subscribing to a connection with >1Mbs upload speed. A recent top-secret national security bill requires all citizens with such bandwidth to become part of the national defense infrastructure. Attached to this email you will find an application. Install it. It will self register with homeland defense and be available for defense of the homeland should the need arise.
Thank you for your cooperation.
ZZ
PS: you have 1 week to register or you will be added to the terrorism watch list and will be subject to extreme rendition if needed.
PPS: we can't show you the bill, this is top-secret national defense stuff.
PPPS: if you are thinking of decompiling or interfering with the operation of this software, see PS:
PPPPS: yes this is MS windows Vista only software. Don't have Vista, see PS:
Re: (Score:2)
Then again...if they're putting it all on windows vista to begin with they've set up the honeypot for me.
Great... (Score:4, Insightful)
shouldn't
be
connected
to
the
INTERNET!!!
perfect security is impossible, somehow "bringing the fight to the enemy" isn't a solution. Changing the way you think about the internet is.
I can't wait until it's "you're on our side of the internet or you're on their side!!"
Every time a government, or especially its military, does something stupid in regards to the internet, I feel the strong need to drink.
Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Java has so many bugs in it that it can't be hacked?
Parent
Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)
That's why you just got the uncontrollable urge to eat brains.
Parent
IT Attack mentality? (Score:3, Interesting)
OTOH, there's no technical reason not use snort + script kiddie tools to automatically detect intruders and try to whack them. You can identify botnet members pretty easily from the pattern of accesses (the probes tend to come in waves, as various parts of the swarm poke your boxes).
The US could just hide in that swarm of accesses, poking servers and doing slow scans to figure out what's where. It's pretty easy these days to do signature profiling on systems, and to just stash this info in a database somewhere. Update each entry every few weeks, and be able to update ranges on demand.
The only really hard part is getting your own botnet up and running. The US Government could, theoretically, tap into the search engines to do this for them, which would be pretty amusing. Nobody pays attention to web spiders, and well, if the spider does a slow port scan 'accidentally' who cares?
AFCYBER - division patch (Score:2)
US Air Force Cyber Command (AFCYBER)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoulder_patch [wikipedia.org]
http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/DUI_SSI_COA_page.htm [pentagon.mil]
Where's hypno-toad... (Score:2, Insightful)
...when you really need him?
random quote from forgotten source:
They are right (Score:2)
If all you do is defense, then eventually the enemy is likely to figure out, how to break you.
Attack is the best defense. You have to be able to retaliate. In "cyber" world this would mean some of the "hacking back", identifying him, putting him to jail, confiscating his computer, fining him.
This "active defense", however, is full of legal (and ethical) pitfalls and thus it is now wonder, the private companies are mostly sticking to passive defense. Private sector is also the main source of professional
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Attack is the best defense.
Spoken like someone who has no understanding of the art of war.
The first rule of war is: don't go to war.
The second rule of war is if you have to go to war make yourself invulnerable before you attack.
"Attack is the best defense" did not work for Germany in the 2nd world war. It didn't work in Vietnam
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As for changes at home - talk at the highest levels about how torturing people is OK, suspension of the rule of law in some cases for something a bit more Feudal and widespread hysteria awoken by things like advertising signs looks like a bit of a cha
Collateral Damage? (Score:2, Funny)
It'll be too hard for them to staff up (Score:3, Insightful)
I would hazard to guess that the reason that China is able to keep its black hats at bay is the ability of their government to make you disappear in the middle of the night and wake up the next day in a labor camp if they even suspect you of compromising government systems.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That may be the case, but more likely the Chinese government just puts them to work. The same thing happens here in the US. There were a couple of guys who went to the LA 2600 meetings in the early 1990s who got visits from the governm
Good luck with that. (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone posted about a class of theirs on Security issues that got shut down by one big corporation, who threatened not to hire any of their departments' students if they insisted on teaching that class.
So, the bottom line is that our Education system isn't turning out the skilled people that the Military is looking to hire.
This is compounded by the fact that the ones who DO get this knowledge, and have the right attitude, are snapped up by the Bad Guys. Crime is increasingly playing a big part on the internet, and those folks WILL pay good money for the right talent which can deliver results.
I suppose the Military could consider subcontracting out to the Mafia. That's really their only option if they are serious. Otherwise, the best they can get will just be second-rate talent, and more likely third-rate talent.
Good luck attacking, or defending, with that. As a US citizen, I find this frightening, but I've been saying it for years. I'm glad someone is finally waking up to the matter. But I doubt anything serious will ever be done until it's too late.
Re:Good luck with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Attack! (Score:2, Funny)
Didn't know the Airforce was into this stuff (Score:5, Funny)
First strike & offense capablity. (Score:5, Interesting)
First they need older hackers, not script kiddies.
Black hats, or at least former black hats.
Lot's of Jolt Cola, Cold Pizza and some dark dungeon supplied with what ever mind altering substances needed and a steady supply of nerdy Asian girls to look after them.
Also the boxed set of all Stargate, Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and.. Na on second thought, we'll just grab them off Bit Torrent. Same for the HDTV, UPS delivery off some stolen credit card, old habits die hard.
Maybe more useful would be legal immunity/amnesty, from all of the collateral damage from relaxing hobbies like taking down the RIAA or Microsoft in the process, (oops).
But seriously, a License to hack anything domestic and foreign with total immunity as long at it's primarily against the enemy would be totally cool, I think a lot of us who had to give up the black hat because we have kids and just can't afford to go to prison, would be all over this.
Why domestic, I almost don't want to say this publicly but the best way to get in is start in.
http://www.c-program.com/kt/reflections-on-trusting.html [c-program.com]
Anyhow you can't play by the rules, if they think you can launch and offensive attack without some pre-preparation your wrong.
Making an offensive toolkit is fantasy. By definition this is script kiddie and lame.
> where vulnerabilities are introduced into chipsets during manufacturing that an adversary can then exploit, and electronics vulnerabilities.
I have been told years ago that this is already being done at Taiwanese fabs to us.
Chips were designed to be resonant at some Ghz ranges and would be equivalent to an EMP when hit.
This is done at the fab without changes to the chip design but layer thicknesses that is something the fab has total control over.
These attacks should be in any OS, Router, or any other electronic devices that get sold and without the knowledge if it manufactures either. This would hackers the greatest flexibility to exploit them when needed. They key is to make sure it's not detectable or exploitable by other hackers.
An example would be to hack into Microsoft and muck with their distro before it goes out.
Of course with Microsoft and Apple, this would already seem to be unnecessary.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I completely agree. A lot of people stopped walking along the path that they were walking after age 18 because what they thought was, "Pretty damn cool." the government and law enforcement agencies thought was, "A federal fe
Someday in the Future... (Score:4, Insightful)
And he'll go "Oh my god! We were totally taken by surprise! Who could have ever imagined or prepared for something as astounding as this!", for about the 4,000th time in the history of this administration.
Collateral damage (Score:3, Insightful)
collateral damage (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought there was an obligation to try to minimize collateral damage?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I thought there was an obligation to try to minimize collateral damage?
Re:IPS? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)