The Cyberwar Plan (NSA cyberattack during Bush administration revealed)

[sabra]

Source: National Journal

It's not just a defensive game; cyber-security includes attack plans too, and the U.S. has already used some of them successfully.

by Shane Harris

Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009


In May 2007, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency, based at Fort Meade, Md., to launch a sophisticated attack on an enemy thousands of miles away without firing a bullet or dropping a bomb.

At the request of his national intelligence director, Bush ordered an NSA cyberattack on the cellular phones and computers that insurgents in Iraq were using to plan roadside bombings. The devices allowed the fighters to coordinate their strikes and, later, post videos of the attacks on the Internet to recruit followers. According to a former senior administration official who was present at an Oval Office meeting when the president authorized the attack, the operation helped U.S. forces to commandeer the Iraqi fighters'

communications system. With this capability, the Americans could deceive their adversaries with false information, including messages to lead unwitting insurgents into the fire of waiting U.S. soldiers.

Former officials with knowledge of the computer network attack, all of whom requested anonymity when discussing intelligence techniques, said that the operation helped turn the tide of the war. Even more than the thousands of additional ground troops that Bush ordered to Iraq as part of the 2007 "surge," they credit the cyberattacks with allowing military planners to track and kill some of the most influential insurgents. The cyber-intelligence augmented information coming in from unmanned aerial drones as well as an expanding network of human spies. A Pentagon spokesman declined to discuss the operation.

...

Some journalists have obliquely described the effectiveness of computerized warfare against the insurgents. In The War Within, investigative reporter Bob Woodward reports that the United States employed "a series of top-secret operations that enable to locate, target, and kill key individuals in extremist groups such as Al Qaeda, the Sunni insurgency, and renegade Shia militias. ... " The former senior administration official said that the actions taken after Bush's May 2007 order were the same ones to which Woodward referred. (At the request of military and White House officials, Woodward withheld "details or the code word names associated with these groundbreaking programs.")

Read more: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cs_20091114_3145.php

[boppers]

1. Silly rabbits, trying to treat the 'net as if it had national boundaries.

At least they're becoming more technically proficient, but the whole "national" angle doesn't work in the 'net. The whole point of the current system was to route around "nations".

[leveymg]

2. It took them until 2007 to do this stuff? How did we ever survive the Bush years . . .

Oops, that's right, the U.S. Constitution was a collateral casualty.

[Demeter]

3. Survival Is a Matter of Interpretation

Lots of people at home and abroad didn't survive, and lots more are going under thanks to BFEE policies and actions or inactions.

[OnyxCollie]

4. I wonder if the five undersea cables that were cut in one week

were part of this cyberattack.

[bemildred]

5. Anybody who thinks anything "helped turn the tide of the war" has his head up his ass.

The tide of the war was never turned. Tactical success is not strategic success, and anyone paying attention knows that the war goes on in Iraq and we got diddle for it other than killing Saddam Hussein, and a lot of stuff is much worse than it was before we invaded. The fact that you can trick a few "insurgents" by playing computer tricks is not worth much, and most certainly not worth what it cost.