CIA war game simulates cyber-attack

THE CIA is conducting a secretive war game, dubbed ‘Silent Horizon’, this week to practice defending against an electronic assault on the same scale as the September 11 terrorism attacks.

The three-day exercise, which ended yesterday, tested the ability of government and industry to respond to internet disruptions over many months.

Participants spoke on condition of anonymity because they had been asked not to disclose details of the exercise in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The simulated attacks were carried out five years into the future by a fictional alliance of anti-American groups, including anti-globalisation hackers. The most serious damage was expected to be inflicted in the war game’s closing hours. The national security simulation was significant because its premise - a devastating cyber-attack that affects government and the economy with the same magnitude as the September 11 suicide hijackings - contravenes assurances by experts that such effects from a cyber-attack are unlikely.

“You hear less and less about the digital Pearl Harbour,” said Dennis McGrath, of the Institute for Security Technology Studies at Dartmouth College.

“What people call cyber-terrorism, it’s just not at the top of the list.”

The CIA’s little-known Information Operations Centre, which evaluates threats to US computer systems, ran the war game.

About 75 people, mostly from the CIA, gathered in conference rooms and reacted to signs of mock computer attacks. The government remains most concerned about terrorists using explosions, radiation and biological threats.

FBI director Robert Mueller warned earlier this year that terrorists are recruiting computer scientists but said most hackers “do not have the resources or motivation to attack the US critical information infrastructures”.

The most recent intelligence assessment of future threats through the year 2020 said cyber-attacks are expected, but terrorists “will continue to primarily employ conventional weapons”.

Authorities are concerned about terrorists combining physical attacks, such as bombings, with hacker attacks to disrupt communications or rescue efforts.

“One of the things the intelligence community was accused of was a lack of imagination,” said Dorothy Denning of the Naval Postgraduate School, an expert on internet threats.