To fully get control of all us dirty little domestic terrorists (i.e. US Citizens). WE are dumping the corporate own media outlets and moving to the real news (on the interweb) and they don’t like it. The sheep-al are waking from their slumber and the NWO is getting scarred. As they should, we need to smoke them bastards out.. (and I’m not talking blunts..)

How hackers affect production

34 security incidents targetted at process plants were identified between 1995 and 2003

50% of incidents caused damage worth more than £556,000

41% of the incidents led to loss of production

29% of the incidents led to companies losing the ability to monitor or control the plant

70% of the attacks after 2001 were from external sources, 5% were internal and 20% accidental

36% of external attacks came through the internet, 20% from a remote dial-up modem, 8% from remote wireless, 8% from virtual private networks;and 4% from a trusted third-party connection
The number of incidents has been increasing sharply since 2000.
Source: BCIT Industrial Security Incident Database

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Sewage released

An Australian hacker was sentenced to two years in 2001 after his attack on sewage control computers at a Brisbane council led to the release of one million litres of raw sewage into the grounds of the Hyatt Regency Resort.

Vitek Boden, who worked for the company that installed the computers, launched the attack in revenge after being turned down for a job at the council.

Boden used a laptop, a two-way radio and hacking programs to break into the sewage control computers and reprogram the pumps. He was found guilty of 46 counts of computer hacking.

(I worked for that company, and was involved in the investigation and conviction of the hacker, and fixing the damage he made).

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Nuclear disruption

The process computer in a US nuclear power station was put out of action by an infection of the SQL Slammer worm in 2002.

The worm infected the Davs-Besse nuclear power plant, overloading the site network, and preventing the plant’s computers from communicating with each other.

The attack disrupted the plant’s safety parameter display systems, which were unavailable for nearly five hours, and the process computer, which was unusable for more than six hours.

An investigation revealed that the worm had entered through a network link that bypassed the firewall, and that engineering staff were unaware of the existence of a Microsoft security patch that could have prevented the incident.

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So mike your denial that these types of things actaully occure and that no damage is done, its ‘just’ a bit of friendly esponiage, or kids.

I dont know why you would claim such ingnorance on the subject, seems your willing to play down possible problems to fit your view of openness and sharing, and taking what is not rightfully yours.

These are real problems, and if someone takes you advise and does nothing, expecting you to know what your talking about, what damage are you doing to people by making claims that there is NO PROBLEM..

Very irresponsible attitude from someone who claims to be a (informed) commentator.

Oh yea, the Estonia cyber attack also focused on the telecom system, taking out the telephones (of the entire country), so during the attack, should you need to call an ambulance, or a doctor and the phones do not work. How is that not LIFE THREATENING, and could have quite possibly led to someone being dead today, that would have been alive had the attack not occured.

You claiming “no damage was done” is nothing more than a guess, it was clear significant damage was done.
But somehow you dont seem to get that Mike !! why not..

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“Utilities across the world are being hit by an estimated 100 to 500 attacks from hackers and malicious worms every year, disrupting the ability of companies to control critical manufacturing plants, with potentially devastating consequences.”

“In one of the most serious incidents, Russian hackers took control of a gas pipeline for 24 hours by penetrating electronic control systems. In another case, in Australia a disgruntled employee released 250 million tonnes of raw sewage by attacking a waste water control system.”

“”In a worst-case **SCENARIO**, if a chemical or petroleum plant were to go up, there would be a risk of loss of life. If people hack into electricity distribution and water systems, there could also be a big impact,” said Justin Lowe, principal consultant at PA Consulting.”

“The findings have shown that the number of recorded attacks against plant control systems has risen sharply over the past three years as more manufacturers replace specialist control systems with networked Windows-based devices.

Control devices, which can be accessed over the internet through wireless links or dedicated telephone lines, either for programming or to feed back management data, have left plants much more vulnerable to electronic attack, said Low”

“The risks have caught the attention of the UK government’s National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre, which is running conferences and an awareness campaign to address the issue. They have also caught the attention of hackers, who see control systems, with their lack of firewalls and other defences, as relatively soft targets.

A hackers’ conference in Birmingham last year gave a demonstration of how to hack into the radio frequency control systems used by UK water companies. An earlier US hackers’ conference published details of attacks on embedded control systems.”

Baseband backbone:

“note also no explanation of why any critical infrastructure would be connected to the internet”.

Mike, do you know much about communications ?

Do you understand, there is a baseband, backbone network, everywhere (many of them in fact), they are WIDE PIPES, that CARRY EVERYTHING. It’s not that critical infrastructure is connected to the internet.

It’s the INTERNET, PHONE SYSTEM, TV, DATA, banking, stock markets, governments and so on ALL ride on the same backbone trunk networks.

The Internet is not the top level of this trunk system, the trunk system just carries data, its a FAT PIPE, and yes some of that data is internet traffic, much is the phone system, but also companies can buy bandwidth on it, and industry as well, so its on that NETWORK that critical infrastructure is carried, it just happens to be a network that also carries internet traffic.

And many of the attacks on control systems would be done with radio modems and ‘man in the middle attacks’ like the Hyatt sewage release in QLD Aust, by Vitek Boden.

You seem to think the internet is the “BIG THING” that everyone connects onto to do everything, its not the internet, and all other forms of digital communications rides on these massive wideband pipes that form a backbone network, that all data rides on, including (but not mostly, or most importantly) the internet.

“Note, yet again, the lack of a mention of his current job.”

What does his current job have to do with anything ? Does not change what he is saying, or make what he is saying wrong. Clearly he is an extremely highly qualified person in the field. And not deserving of Ad Hominine attacks.

Do you disagree what deterrence is needed ? So you think if there is no deterrence there would be LESS attacks ?

McCommell Says “An attack on computer networks could knock out power grids, telecomunications, transportation and banking systems in a matter of seconds”

Mike says “There is no mention of how serious this threat really is”

Well Mike, I would say knocking out power grids, telecommunications, transport and banking would be a “mention of how serious this threat really is ” but you don’t !!!

“Some level of confidence that you know from where a transaction originated is a requirement,” McConnell says.

Mike said
“Except that’s not true. In pretty much every case of such hacking/DDoS attempts, people have been pretty quick to figure out where they’re really originating from. No one actually seems confused by that”

Except you Mike:
So who was behind the Estonia attacks?, and where did it ORIGINATE from,
What about “TITAN RAIN” (look it up), a coordinated series of cyber attacks on critical US computer systems, origin UNKNOWN.

Who was the groups and where was the source for the recent google hack ?
It actually seems he is completely wrong, finding out the ORIGIN of the attack is very difficult, and often its not possible.
Yet Mike you claim the exact opposite, that most of the time they quickly work it out, do you really believe what your telling us, or do you just expect us to believe it, of face value because you said it.

Would you expect us to do some simple fact checking to see if what you are saying is accurate or factual ? As we expect you to do your homework first so what you post is at lease accurate, at present this article is misleading, inaccurate, and quite possibly dangerous if people take your authority as true and do nothing, or consider there is no present or future threat because Mike said so..

AC – “What I’m wondering about is why one would connect something vital to the public internet”

Its not connecting something vital to the public internet, its the public internet, phones, TV, banking, business, industry all emply wide band backbone truck systems that just carry huge amounts of data. Including the internet.

But the internet, and this trunk are seperate, just as the phone system and the trunk and internet is separate.

they all just happend to use the same piples to transfer data. The internet rides on this trunk-backbone, the trunk-backbone does NOT ride on the internet.

The internet is a passenger, just like the phone networks, TV, banking etc are all passengers on the same network.

The signals and data does not mix, you cant hack into the backbone trunk system via the internet, and therefore you cannot access the phone data on the trunk that carries you internet traffic.

So it not the case that these systems are “on the internet”, they are on but backbone trunk, along with the phone system, banks, internet and so on.

May be a little research in communications technology would be an advantage here. along with an understanding of how the internet, and digital communications actually works.

The design of the internet is such that entire sections can be Whacked to dust and you can find routs to get communication around. THIS is why capacity infrastructure needs to keep going , the more you have the less likely hood you can take out a networks communications.

IF a foreign country however gets ahead of you too far , then you can plug up and whack the ability.

SO who instigated caps, throttling and UUB?
Hollywood tried the liability factor and thats caused ISPS to STOP infrastructure investments over profits.
The net result is a fall behind some nations that can then over power your infrastructure.

What can be done is that each major country rolls out say 100megabit at same time rather then allow other countries to keep going nd going and get too far ahead.

Sp tell the admiral to go tell hollywood to f off and ban caps and bring back incentive to add capacities.