Islamo-cyber-terror hits Defcon level farce

Run for the bus

Islamic cyber terrorists have reached such advanced levels of computer literacy that they have learned how to leave graffiti on websites, according to British intelligence and security chiefs.

After many years in which press over-reaction to official speculation of suspected Islamic cyber terror threats has encircled Britain in a shroud of incredulous fear, Parliament's Joint Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) subtly downgraded the cyber terror threat last week.

The ISC said "Islamist terrorists" had learned how to deface websites and launch denial of service attacks, a routine method hacktivists, hackers and criminals use to prevent people's websites from working for short periods.

The committee's annual report for 2008-2009 said last week that only "limited forms of attack" were available to Islamo-cyber-terrorists, and their "technical capability varies greatly".

Referring to evidence submitted to the committee by GCHQ, the UK's high-tech spook-station, in February 2009, the report stopped shy of admitting just how quaint is the cyber terror threat.

"These attempts are often ***," said the report with keywords modestly removed. "There are, however, indications that awareness and use of electronic attack is on the increase and ***."

Bogeymen

The committee also invoked the frightening spectre that is the state-led cyber threat, or the possibility that Britain's electronic borders are besieged by foreign data hordes. It sensationally referred to incidents of espionage involving network intrusion as "attacks".

It repeated threat assertions made by the Centre for the Protection of the National Infrastructure, a GCHQ computer shop, without question.

"Foreign intelligence services conduct large-scale electronic attacks with the aim of stealing government, defence and technology information from targets in both government and industry," it warned.

Yet military and cyber security chiefs speak openly about the impossibility of identifying those who attempt to probe their computer systems. The problem of attribution, as it is known, is a central thread of international talks hoping to design laws to contain the cyber actions of national armies.

Balls

Foreign espionage is assumed to be behind the network intrusions for the same reason that, say, a dog will lick its balls. Because it can. And everyone is at it. Not just Johnny foreigner.

Espionage is lawful under international law. Defence experts even value it for its ability to avoid costly mistakes like the Iraq war, said such experts under non-disclosure at the Cyber Warfare 2010 conference in London in January.

Yet the threat cannot be quantified because neither governments nor corporations want to admit when they do bleed valuable data, nor that they've no idea who took it.

The committee that repeated these latest assertions is supposed scrutinise the work of the intelligence services, but is said to be so "embarrassingly inadequate" that it rubber stamped dubious claims that spies had not tortured terror suspects.

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