[ISN] Feds urge secrecy over network outages

[InfoSec News]

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/8966

By Kevin Poulsen
SecurityFocus 
June 23 2004
  
Giving the public too many details about significant network service
outages could present cyberterrorists with a "virtual road map" to
targeting critical infrastructures, according to the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security, which this month urged regulators to keep such
information secret.

At issue is an FCC proposal that would require telecom companies to
report significant outages of high-speed data lines or wireless
networks to the commission. The plan would rewrite regulations that
currently require phone companies to file a publicly-accessible
service disruption report whenever they experience an outage that
effects at least 30,000 telephone customers for 30 minutes or more.  
Enacted in the wake of the June 1991 AT&T long-distance crash, the FCC
credits the rule with having reversed a trend of increased outages on
the phone network, as telecom companies used the disclosures to
develop best practices and learn from each others' mistakes.

The commission is hoping for similar results on the wireless and data
networks that have become integral to the U.S. economy and emergency
response capability. The proposal would expand the landline reporting
requirement to wireless services, and generally measure the impact of
a telecom outage by the number of "user minutes" lost, instead of the
number of customers affected.

It would also require telecom and satellite companies to start issuing
reports when high-speed data lines suffer significant outages:  
specifically, whenever an outage of at least 30 minutes duration
affects at least 1,350 "DS3 minutes." A DS3 line carries 45 megabits
per second, the equivalent of 28 DS1 or T1 lines.

The reports would include details like the geographic area of the
outage, the direct causes of the incident, the root cause, whether not
there was malicious activity involved, the name and type of equipment
that failed, and the steps taken to prevent a reoccurrence, among
other things.

To the Department of Homeland Security, that's a recipe for disaster.  
"While this information is critical to identify and mitigate
vulnerabilities in the system, it can equally be employed by hostile
actors to identify vulnerabilities for the purpose of exploiting
them," the DHS argued in an FCC filing this month. "Depending on the
disruption in question, the errant disclosure to an adversary of this
information concerning even a single event may present a grave risk to
the infrastructure."

If the FCC is going to mandate reporting, the DHS argued, it should
channel the data to a more circumspect group: the Telecom ISAC
(Information Sharing and Analysis Center), an existing voluntary
clearinghouse for communications-related vulnerability information,
whose members include several government agencies and all the major
communications carriers. Data exchanged within the Telecom-ISAC is
protected from public disclosure.

"[T]he ultimate success of our critical infrastructure protection
effort depends, in large part, not merely on having the necessary
information, but on having it available when and where it is most
needed," the DHS argues.

The FCC hasn't ruled on the matter. Telecom companies are generally
against the proposed new reporting requirements, arguing that the
industry's voluntary efforts are sufficient.