DHS and NSA getting married?

Steven Bellovin smb at cs.columbia.edu
Fri Oct 22 15:08:43 UTC 2010


On Oct 22, 2010, at 11:04 37AM, Christopher Morrow wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 1:46 AM, George Bonser <gbonser at seven.com> wrote:
>> An agreement signed this month with the Department of Homeland Security
>> and an earlier initiative to protect companies in the defense industrial
>> base make it likely that the military will be a key part of any response
>> to a cyber attack.
> 
> are any of the civilian agencies really prepared/capable of dealing
> with 'cyber attack'? it seems fairly natural that a 'cyber attack' (on
> the gov't, or it's pieces/parts) is equivalent to an 'attack' on same.
> We don't arm the NIST folks with Ar-15's and send them over the hill,
> we do that with marines.
> 
Is it a cyberattack, a clumsy criminal, or a bored teenager?  From http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12651&page=142 :

	In the words of a former Justice Department official involved with critical infrastructure protection, “I have seen too many situations where government officials claimed a high degree of confidence as to the source, intent, and scope of an attack, and it turned out they were wrong on every aspect of it. That is, they were often wrong, but never in doubt.”


		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb









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