[Infowarrior] - How Powerful Are the Pentagon's Hackers?

[Richard Forno]

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/04/how-powerful-ar.html
April 30, 2009
How Powerful Are the Pentagon's Hackers?

The National Research Council stepped into the shadowy world of  
cyberwarfare this week, issuing a call for open discussion of the  
Pentagon's efforts to build computer viruses or other novel weapons to  
infect or destroy an adversary's computers. According to the NRC  
panel, the "cyberattack capabilities" of the United States are  
probably more powerful than "the most sophisticated cyberattacks  
perpetrated by cybercriminals."

This is a good thing, says Admiral William Owens, a former vice chair  
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who co-chaired the NRC panel. According  
to Owens, attacking foreign computers is "a very important  
capability." But he also warned of dangers stemming from widespread  
secrecy and ignorance surrounding the nation's cyberarsenal. Most  
civilian policymakers and senior military leaders, he says, don't  
fully understand how attacks on computers are carried out and probably  
don't understand the risks involved. In the early stages of a  
conflict, he says, "it may be considered just a little too easy" to  
sabotage an adversary's power grid or telecommunications with  
software, instead of with explosives. But the risks, in fact, may be  
similar: "Cyberattacks are not of lesser significance simply because  
they target computers."

He compared the current situation to the relative silence surrounding  
nuclear strategy in the 1950s. Herman Kahn set off a wider public  
discussion with his book On Thermonuclear War in 1960, which forced  
policymakers and military leaders to think more clearly about the  
consequences of using nuclear weapons. The country should be having a  
similar discussion, he says, about cyberwarfare.

The report recommends that foundations and the U.S. government support  
academic research on cyberconflict, just as they have on nuclear,  
biological, and chemical warfare. It also recommends that Congress  
require a periodic accounting of cyberattacks that the nation's  
military and intelligence services have carried out. The Pentagon may  
be surreptitiously trying to enter computers in Iran and sabotage that  
country's uranium enrichment program.

—Dan Charles