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INSS Global Cyber Review – June 2013

Jun 23, 2013

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Global Cyber

Review

Israel

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Israel taking cyber security more seriously

Hezi Kalo, CEO of the Bank of Israel, recently stated that: “We are at war, something that does not work on a regular day, will not work during a crisis. In order to prepare for a major cyber-attack scenario, Israel should understand the security gaps and start planning.”

Some Israeli soldiers will soon be closing their Facebook accounts following a new crackdown on social media use, a move that will limit or ban outright use of the networks by soldiers in classified units. INSS Cyber team considers this issue to be extremely important and envisions this to be a difficult restriction to comply with, unless strict measures and are taken against soldiers who violate the new regulations.

USA

U.S. planning official procedures for retaliation to cyber-attacks

The Washington Post published on June 07 2013 that President Obama called on the NSC to develop destructive cyber-warfare capabilities that could be triggered with “little or no warning” against adversaries around the world.

Presidential Policy Directive 20, issued to national security and intelligence officials in October, includes an array of procedures to ensure that cyber-attacks are lawful and minimize damage. But in bureaucratic language, the directive indicates the government believes cyber-attacks, known as “Offensive Cyber Effects Operations,” or OCEO, are becoming common and that cyber-war could be just around the corner.

PRISM the U.S cyber surveillance program

The U.S government program PRISM (Planning Tool for Resource Integration, Synchronization, and Management) is a clandestine program created by the NSA in 2007 in order to collect information in cyberspace.

A monitoring system that allows the National Security Agency, to monitor the flow of information that travels over the Internet and the information stored on web servers. American companies such as Google and Facebook were part of the project.

The program is perfectly legal in the United States, based on the legislation, of the FISAAA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act), and in particular it’s Article 1881 from 2008 which allows the monitoring of targeted information, only on personal data outside the United States. According to Keith B. Alexander the Head of the NSA, the PRISM program protected the U.S form many terrorist attacks.

Russia

Russian cyber criminals helping Iran

Senior U.S. security officials believe that Iran hires foreign programmers involved in cyber crime – especially Russian hackers.

Iran

Iran found to be the biggest collector of intelligence in the world

Iran, according to the report of a senior military official in Israel, is significantly accelerating its efforts in cyberspace. Progress is the result of a calculated and precise planning of computer science programs and growing hacker communities in the field. Iranian program developments are of a much more “disciplined and mature” nature than before.

Data-mining

According to recent reports, American intelligence units have used a secret data-mining program to monitor worldwide internet data. It has revealed that Iran is the country where the largest amount of intelligence is gathered, with more than 14 billion reports during the period of observation, followed by 13.5 billion from Pakistan. Jordan came third with 12.7 billion, Egypt fourth with 7.6 billion and India fifth with 6.3 billion.

APAC

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Chinese could be the victim of U.S. cyber transgression

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who leaked information about US surveillance programs, claims that the American government has been hacking into computers in Hong Kong and mainland China for years.

The Global Times says Mr. Snowden’s whistle-blowing has confirmed speculation that the U.S. is playing up alleged China cyber-spying as a “fig leaf for its own cyber-warfare”.

“Before the U.S. government rushes to shut Snowden’s mouth, China also needs to seek an explanation from Washington… We are not bystanders. The issue of whether the US is an Internet superpower that has abused its powers touches on our vital interests directly,” it says.

Europe

UK banks more concerned over cyber-attacks than the European financial crisis

According to a senior Bank of England official, cyber attacks and hacking are of greater concern than the financial crisis in the euro zone.

Last month, it was revealed in the U.S. how a crime ring had hacked banks located in the Middle East to the sum of $45 million, by compromising their credit card processing firms and withdrawing money from cash machines across multiple countries.

Four of Britain’s biggest banks have said that a cyber attack was their biggest worry and Andrew Haldane, the BoE’s director of financial stability, agreed with this by saying that “You can see why the financial sector would be a particularly good target for someone wanting to wreak havoc through the cyber route.”

NATO creation of a special cyber force to protect critical infrastructures

On Tuesday 4^th June, NATO approved the creation of a rapid reaction force to protect the computer networks of the Atlantic Alliance in the event of any cyber-attacks. The General Secretary, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, decided to create rapid response teams to protect computer systems from NATO. The 28 ministers took this decision during the first ministerial meeting on cyber defense. This is a serious issue that we take seriously because it can have devastating consequences. The NATO defense system against cyber-attacks should be completely operational this autumn.