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RealNews Items
Oklahoma City Bombing Figure Rejailed For 12 Years
October 8, 1999 | adminThe man convicted of failing to warn police about the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people lost his bid Friday to reduce his original 12-year sentence, CBS radio reported. Fortier has spent four years in jail, convicted of involuntary manslaughter for failing to warn authorities that his friend Timothy
McVeigh was plotting to blow up the Alfred P Murrah federal building in April 1995. Full Story
NIPC Cyber Threat Assessment
October 8, 1999 | adminNIPC Director Mike Vatis provides the following Threat Assessment in which he states: Terrorists are known to use information technology and the Internet to formulate plans, raise funds, spread propaganda, and to communicate securely. For example, convicted terrorist Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, stored detailed plans to destroy United States airliners on encrypted files on his laptop computer. Moreover, some groups have already used cyber attacks to inflict damage on their enemies' information systems. For example, a group calling itself the Internet Black Tigers conducted a successful “denial of service” attack on servers of Sri Lankan government embassies. Italian sympathizers of the Mexican Zapatista rebels attacked web pages of Mexican financial institutions. And a Canadian government report indicates that the Irish Republican Army has considered the use of information operations against British interests. We are also concerned that Aum Shinrikyo, which launched the deadly Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway system, could use its growing expertise in computer manufacturing and Internet technology to develop “cyber terrorism” weapons for use against Japanese and U.S. interests. Thus while we have yet to see a significant instance of “cyber terrorism” with widespread disruption of critical infrastructures, all of these facts portend the use of cyber attacks by terrorists to cause pain to targeted governments or civilian populations by disrupting critical systems.
Albright Designation of Foreign Terrorist Organizations
October 8, 1999 | adminA copy of the letter from the Secretary of State requesting that the following list of terrorist organizations be published in the Federal Register.
Information Terrorism: Can You Trust Your Toaster?
October 8, 1999 | adminThe full version of the paper “Information Terrorism: Can You Trust Your Toaster?” has been made available in PDF format. We have been offering a reduced version of this paper for several years. This is the original version and contains an introductory scenario detailing an information terrorism attack. The document was originally published in 1996 and can be found here.
GAO Critical Infrastructure Protection Document
October 8, 1999 | adminThe GAO has made available their report entitled “Critical Infrastructure Protection: Comprehensive Strategy Can Draw on Year 2000 Experiences”. A copy of the document can be found here.
U.S. urges U.N. sanctions against Taliban over bin Laden
October 7, 1999 | adminCNN reports that the United States is pushing forU.N. sanctions against the Taliban leaders in Afghanistan to pressure them to hand over Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, who is accused of leading a worldwide terrorist network. Full Story
Technical Community Discusses Cyberterrorism
October 7, 1999 | adminThe technical gurus at Slashdot, a geek news/community site, have been holding some very interesting disuccsions on cyberterrorism. An editor from Jane's asked the Slashdot community to comment on an article they were preparing to publish on the topic. The response was overwhelming and somewhat negative and as a result, the editor has decided to discard the original article in favor of an article created with the Slashdot commnents. Great reading for those interested in the topic. Slashdot Discussion
National Infrastructure Protection Week?
October 7, 1999 | adminThe TRC Staff has encountered at least a dozen articles in the past 24 hours discussing infrastructure protection issues. NIPC Director Mike Vatis provided testimony on the hill yesterday detailing an operation dubbed Moonlight Maze in which attacks on U.S. systems were traced back to Moscow. The Russians have denied that these attacks were sponsored by the Russian government with one government official stating “Do you think Russian special services are so stupid as to engage in such activities directly from Moscow?” The Industry Standard has a good overview of yesterdays hearings. All of the major newswires are carrying stories as well.
Russians Detain 2,000 in Anti-terrorist Operation
October 7, 1999 | adminAP is reporting that Moscow police have detained 2,000 people and seized scores of weapons as part of an anti-terrorism operation in the Russian capital. During the operation, code-named Whirlwind, police confiscated 88 firearms and 26 pounds of explosives, Interior Ministry inspector Viktor Krykhtin said, according to the agency. Full Story
Senate Committee to Examine IT Security Threat
October 6, 1999 | adminA U.S. Senate Judiciary subcommittee today will examine the information security threats posed to the nation's public and private critical infrastructure. This hearing follows a federal report released this week that faulted the federal government's security efforts while warning that little was known about the effectiveness security systems at private companies. The hearing will be held by the subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information. ComputerWorld