Topic: Homeland Security conducting fake cyberattacks

DHS to run cybersecurity exercise

BY Michael Arnone
Published on Jan. 31, 2006

The Homeland Security Department is scheduled to test federal and private-sector readiness for cyberattacks next week, an industry executive said.

The national exercise, named Cyber Storm, will take place Feb. 6-10, said Scott Algeier, executive director of the Information Technology Information Sharing and Analysis Center (IT-ISAC).

Cyber Storm is a federally mandated and funded exercise to “see how cyberattacks against critical infrastructure might play out and how people react to them,”  Algeier said.

The exercise looks at cyberattacks on critical infrastructure that is not traditionally evaluated from a cyber perspective, Algeier said.

DHS’ National Cyber Security Division is leading the exercise and has developed most of the scenarios, Algeier said.

Cyber Storm will test how well IT-ISAC partners communicate with one another and with DHS in situations resembling real events, Algeier said.

The exercise will also help officials determine when federal intervention is necessary to coordinate a response, Algeier said.

IT-ISAC has eight members participating in the exercise, the center’s Web site states. The participants are Cisco Systems, Citadel Security Software, CA (formerly Computer Associates), Computer Sciences Corp., Intel, Microsoft, Symantec and VeriSign.

Source

Re: Homeland Security conducting fake cyberattacks

Interesting to say the least.  Quite a few things come to mind as I read this, too many to list here... but for starters:

a) As if they could actually test readiness for cyberattacks, hah!
b) Well, maybe they could test it afterall, since many attacks are probably staged by them in the first place.
c) Does this mean we can expect outages etc during this timeframe?
d) Do we really think it'll stop after Feb 10? lol...
e) Of course it wont be a *real* test, since the last thing they want is for US to actually be *prepared* for something...
f) Even if we *are* prepared, don't really expect them to stop any future attacks!
g) This article says in very fine print at the bottom "there WILL be upcoming attacks..."
h) Their ranks will almost definitely be involved in any such attacks mentioned above
i) We can expect this to be the beginning of the end of the web as we know it

...anyone care to finish the alphabet scoop on the alphabet soup I just started?

This is no time for the righteous
Only the wicked survive
Bake up a batch of the Yellow Cake
Bake up a batch of the lies
- - - - -[ Yellow Cake - Ministry - Rio Grande Blood (2006)