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UK fears “Cybergeddon”
Published: 30 June, 2009, 10:52
Edited: 11 May, 2010, 14:14
TAGS: UK, SciTech, Terrorism, Internet
Terrorists are planning a deadly new attack: this time online – that’s the fear of the UK government, which has announced the creation of a national cyber army to counter web assaults on the country’s infrastructure.
Cybergeddon and Digital Pearl Harbor – these are just two of the nicknames given to the ultimate computer-generated terrorist attack. According to the British government, it’s not that far away.
To counter the perceived threat, the security minister has announced the launch of the futuristically-named “Cyber-Security Operations Centre”. It will bring together the expertise of MI-5, the police, and GCHQ – the communications branch of the UK’s intelligence agency.
Paralyzing “poison”
In the scenario laid out by officials, terrorists would attack the computers that run a country’s critical infrastructure – the electricity grid, oil and gas supplies, water and communications. Experts say the initial effect of such an attack would be crippling.“What would happen is that the initial impact would freeze services, and that would bring us to our knees,” said Harry Ferguson, a former MI-6 officer.
“You effectively gain a strategic advantage over your enemy because you paralyze movement, you cause civilian disruption, disrupt essential services, inhibit the ability of your enemy to react, you slow your enemy down, which is something you’re always looking to do in modern warfare”.
Where do the hackers come from?
According to the UK’s security minister, the government has already faced cyber attacks from China and Russia, although he denies that any secret information was stolen.
Security services believe Al-Qaeda is also working on hacking into key systems to lift military secrets and launch cyber-terrorist attacks.
According to Ferguson, “With the number of weapon systems which rely on computer, on electronic information, increasing all the time, that type of attack is becoming more and more effective.”
Web security stepped up worldwide
The British government is not alone in its fight against digital terrorism.
The US has also set up a cyber-defense command in the Pentagon, where it says it’s already registering tens of millions of attacks on its systems every day.
Governments all over the world are realizing that the next big threat to their national security could come from the Internet. And it’s not like a nuclear attack, where the location of warheads and who possesses them is known. Cybergeddon could come from anywhere and at any time, and at the moment a key suspect is Russia.
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29 comments
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I must send my condolonces to the British people on the loss of their individual right to freedom and congratulations to the new socialist totalitarian regime who has succeded by gradual and patient stages of movement.Extremely clever while excellent use of the media and communications arteries to distract with and condition.Kudos to such sheer genius. The Great British public has now become a beautiful subservient and structured class system with base servility at the bottom entertained and conditioned by the star and sun and daily mirror with a professional class who can take care of the important stuff along with isolate the servile class form the upper tier...kudos. All vehicles on the transport network and people on the public network can be tracked 24/7 with the new ability to go back to infinity and new technologies such as infinite storage and rf will superceed totalitarianisms wildest dreams...be patient its almost complete. Your individuality and soveirgnity is almost taken and the new socialist nightmare is upon you.Where is your common law now? Dont bother complaining..its already done..all while you were too busy looking at big brother and coronation street and worshipping worthless footballers and checking out the celebrities.Yes you will now pay for your lazy apathy and submit because that is what you have chose while your holy ones and those who were warning you were ridiculed and seen as madmen. You have made your bed so now go lie in it and wait for the imposter
Hmm and its taken them this long to realise it.
What needs to happen is that you build internet2 and export all your corruptness to there and leave us to our old happy internet for the people as a sandbox for us to play in.
Internet1 = Sandbox for the people and owned by the people as it should be.
Internet2 = Corrupt buisness like Banks, Govs, and Buisness that dont pay propper tax as they threaten to leave etc.
See the division? you need to distance yourselves from the masses.
We need to divide what is potetially wrong against what is known to be very wrong, like we do with prison and freedoms.
And until this happens its just going to get worse and worse, until the plonker hackers realise even they cant do anything anymore.
Also lastly human fact: we destroy everything we com into contact with.
How you stop that one I dont know.