Case Study #6: CyberWar attack and defend
In this week’s tutorial, we have to put our hypothetical hats on and brainstorm on what sort of internet/computer related attacks would take place if we were to be at war with a superpower.
In the first part of the analysis: we identified what types of attacks could occur:
Jamming - Denial of Service attacks that block network services and communication - specially in wireless systems.
Infiltrating the CIA Systems and gaining access to sensitive information.
Crack into telecommunication System and send panic/nuisance/blackmail messages.
Hack into the Defence System and locate weapons locations and related security infomation
Gaining control of the Central PowerGrid and Water Plants.
Gaining control of the satellites thereby using it for surveillance purposes.
Data Theft
Spying and Eavesdropping
Attacking Transport Networks
Terrorism/ Bomb Threats.
Tampering with Air-traffic Control - reducing confidence in trusted systems
The second part of the Analysis was to come up with 10 or more recommendations on how to mitigate these attacks:
Build an army of Tech specialists, engineers and ethical hackers.
Invest in lots of super computers
Have spies in other countries for intel gathering
Have a solar power plant as backup- if attacks are made on Power plants. Also centralise power resources to use battery and other renewable energy resources.
Make sure out tech products aren't manufactured in other (enemy) countries.
Go Old-school for backup: try to decouple technology from defence system- have a manual defence system that needs manual physical access.
Sperate civilian and government communication lines - to reduce human error and carelessness from affecting government operations.
Attach by Malware - and create the resources well ahead needed for this attack.
Allow for public education and awareness: on how to overcomes social engineering attacks.
Be secure enough to be able to show our defence system to the entire world.
Implementing a cyber draft (this would require a cyber task force)- where computer science students are taught how to attack, defend and form a security-relegated mindset. By training people, we can stop attacks before they get too far with a bigger army.
