I wanted to continue to discuss Cyberwar threats, which started with my very first Blog in this forum. Recent event in the Middle East along with interesting not too well know factors in the US have again given me substantial concern.

Cyberwar in the Middle East

I saw an interesting story in Reuters titled “Israeli government websites under mass hacking attack”.  This article says that “more than 44 million hacking attempts have been made on Israeli government webs sites since Wednesday when Israel began its Gaza air strikes”.  This exactly the counter issue to a kinetic response to a cyber first strike.   It seems that these attacks are coming from around the world, but only one hacking attempt has been so far successful. Sites being attacked include defense-related sites have been hit the hardest, with 10 million attempts at hacking on the site of Israel’s president, 7 million on the Foreign Ministry and 3 million on the site of the prime minister.  At this is only what has been publicly disclosed. The Israeli Finance Ministry’s computer division is operating in emergency mode in order to continue to block these attacks.

Interestingly the article also comments that both the Palestinian and Israeli side are using social media as one of the tools of their warfare. In explanation of how only one successful attack had taken place, the Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said “We are enjoying the fruits of our investment in recent years in developing computerized defense systems”. Carmela Avner, Israel’s chief information officer says “The war is taking place on three fronts. The first is physical, the second is on the world of social networks, and the third is cyber”.

We only need to remember how just last month Leon Panetta said that cyberspace is the battlefield of the future to see how quickly it became just that.

President Obama signs secret cybersecurity war directive

Just this week news articles also appeared that discussed a new secret cybersecurity directive see “Obama Directive Would Allow Preemptive Cyber Strikes” and “Obama reportedly signs secretive cybersecurity policy directive”  Some of my past postings were aimed at highlighting the serious nature of Advanced Persistent Threats for SMBs, First Strikes in Cyberwar and  Know When You Need to Respond to Cyberattack where  I discussed the failure of the Cybersecurity Act, and the new Tallinn Manual, which detailed the internal agreement relating armed conflict related to cyberwar.  I also said the same thing that Leon Panetta also later said relating that our intelligence agencies have been warning us that a true cyberwar threat was on our horizon and that these warning were similar to the intelligence warnings which were ignored preceding the 911 attacks.

I know that we are all hopeful that the situation in the Middle East will be negotiated into a peaceful settlement or ceasefire, but it is already evident that many players have already chosen to engage in the negative cyber side of this conflict. I believe that we now more than ever need to make sure that we take preventative defense measures for securing our own information systems and that we lobby our congressional delegation to also formulate a good national CyberSecurity Act.  The Cyberwar Cliff we are about to encounter may be as equally dangerous as the Fiscal Cliff, which we are also facing and it could compound the impact of both.