Iraq Cyber Attack and the DigiSEALs

Iraq Cyber Attack and the DigiSEALs

Reports have recently made it into the pub­lic domain that back in May of 2007 President George W. Bush autho­rized the National Security Agency (NSA) to launch a sophis­ti­cated cyber attack on the cel­lu­lar phones and com­put­ers of insur­gents in Iraq. This cyber attack cre­ated the abil­ity for U.S. forces to plant false infor­ma­tion that lead to the decep­tion of insurgents. Multiple senior level offi­cials have report­edly told media sources that this attack helped turn the tide of the war in Iraq.

Coincidently enough two senior offi­cials (Mike McConnell — NSA and Army General David Petraeus — Commander of allied forces in Iraq) with sig­nif­i­cant expe­ri­ence and cyber war­fare knowl­edge that under­stood the capa­bil­i­ties of cyber weapons were placed in top mil­i­tary and intel­li­gence positions.

The mis­sion of Cyber Command is to pro­tect and defend the U.S. military’s infor­ma­tion assets, net­works and sys­tems, as well as to stand ready to con­duct offen­sive cyber attack oper­a­tions against our adver­saries. Inside sources say that Cyber Command has almost final­ized their cyber war­fare doc­trine and cyber oper­a­tional plans based on the expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge of the intel­li­gence agen­cies as well as other mil­i­tary leaders.

FACT: The first infor­ma­tion war­fare cen­ter at the NSA was estab­lished in the mid 90s.
FACT: Each year, DoD grad­u­ates approx­i­mately 100 stu­dents from a spe­cial pro­gram devoted solely to cyber warfare.

One glimpse into cyber oper­a­tions has already leaked out. For the last few month rumors have per­sisted about spe­cial cyber units, referred to as “Cyber Seal Teams,” that are deployed on for­eign soil and actively com­pro­mis­ing net­works and sys­tems to gather intel­li­gence and more. You can be sure our ene­mies are build­ing or already have these same type of cyber units.


Rest of article at: http://defensetech.org/2009/11/16/iraq-cyber-attack-and-the-digiseals/?wh=wh