It is interesting to note the kind of fear mongering and reliance on service disruption to describe cyber warfare. Few if any are looking at the other elements such as confidentiality being exploited. Imagine if all the politicos in Washington had their medical records exposed? Considering the security services any asymmetric attack against a nation using computers is going to have to be through more than one vector.

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March 6, 2008

Australia will join global counter-terrorism war games to test the security of vital resources including dams, power stations, telephone exchanges and banks.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland will announce the federal government's involvement in Cyberstorm II.

"Governments that take national security seriously can't turn a blind eye to the threat of cyber-terrorism," Mr McClelland said.

Cyberstorm II will run from March 10 for five days and will also involve security officials and businesses from the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand.

"The exercise will be useful in identifying areas in Australia's national security architecture that may require further development," Mr McClelland said.

Confirmation of Australia's involvement in Cyberstorm II comes as the US Department of Defence ratchets up its concerns about cyber-terrorism.

"Cyber warfare is already here," Deputy Defence Secretary Gordon England said earlier this week.

"It's one of our major challenges."

"I think cyber attacks are probably analogous to the first time, way back when people had bows and arrows and spears, and somebody showed up with gunpowder and everybody said, 'Wow. What was that?'"

The first Cyberstorm drill in 2006 forced a host of international intelligence agencies to face multiple fictitious attacks at one time.

Washington's subway trains shut down. Seaport computers in New York went dark and a mysterious liquid was found on London's Tube.

The laundry list of fictional catastrophes, which included hundreds of people on "No Fly" lists arriving suddenly at US airport ticket counters, is significant because it suggests what kind of real-world trouble keeps allied security forces awake at night.

The $US3 million ($A3.22 million), invitation-only war game simulated what the US described as plausible attacks over five days in February 2006 against the technology industry, transportation lines and energy utilities by anti-globalisation hacker


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