Israel builds Cybernetic taskforce to defend against cyberwar

A day after Iran announced the establishment of a Cyber Command, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Wednesday announced the establishment of a national cybernetic taskforce to encourage and develop the field of cybernetics and turn the State of Israel into a global center of knowledge, in cooperation with academia, industry, the security establishment and other public bodies.

The national cybernetic taskforce is being established in accordance with the recommendations of a special team from the Higher Committee for Science and Technology, which was appointed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, and is chaired by National Research and Development Council Director Prof. Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael.

The main responsibility of the taskforce will be to expand the state’s ability to defend vital infrastructure networks against cybernetic terrorist attacks perpetrated by foreign countries and terrorist elements.

The taskforce is being established following several such attacks that have taken place around the world in recent years, including those which disrupted the electricity grid in Brazil, banks in Estonia and elections in Myanmar.

Israeli electronic networks are also under constant threat.  For example, the Bank of Israel’s website was shut down in 2008.  This past June, after the Turkish flotilla, hackers attacked many Israeli Internet sites, including that of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has directed the allocation of a special budget to implement the five-year plan that will place Israel at the global forefront in this field.  The plan includes investments in academic research and development, the establishment of a super computer-based center at an Israeli university, the establishment of academic centers of excellence, accelerated activity to bring researchers and academics back to Israel, significantly increasing the number of cybernetics students and upgrading university research infrastructures.

The plan will also encourage the business sector, especially high-tech, in order to develop blue-and-white technologies that will give Israel a significant advantage in the field.  The Government will remove export impediments on cybernetic developments and the security establishment will increase assistance for the development of cybernetic technologies by private industries.

Iran to establish first cyber command

Islamic Revolution Guards Corps Brigadier General Masood Jazayeri has said Iran plans to establish the country’s first cyber command.

The Islamic Republic has completed the preliminary studies on the cyber command, Jazayeri told the Mehr News Agency on Tuesday.

The general outlines of the cyber command have been prepared and have been examined by the Supreme National Security Council, the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, and senior officials of the Armed Forces, he explained.

On June 23, 2009, the U.S. secretary of defense directed the commander of U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) to establish USCYBERCOM. Initial operational capability was attained on May 21, 2010. USCYBERCOM reached full operational capability on October 31, 2010.

In addition to the United States, some European countries have also established similar organizations to counter cyber threats posed to their interests.

Governments snooping more and more on Internet

Freedom on the Internet is coming under more and more threat from governments around the world, according to the second ‘Freedom on the Net’ (FOTN) report by the Freedom Institute for 2011.

The study of 37 countries found former Soviet republic Estonia to have the freest Internet, with a restriction of just 10 points, followed by the United States with a restriction score of 13.

The most restricted Internet is for users in Iran, Cuba, China and Burma, with restriction levels of between 83 and 89 (out of 100).

The overall trend, the report found, was towards less and less freedom on the Internet as governments become more and more alarmed at or better at controller what they consider uncomfortable exchange of information and co-operation through the Internet.

“Of the 15 countries covered in the pilot [report of 2009], a total of 9 registered score declines over the past two years,” the report noted.

Freedom House is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Washington DC that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom and human rights, known for its annual report on democratic freedoms in each country.

Even in the newly added countries, the report, compiled by more than 40 researchers based around the World, found evidence of a “negative trajectory,” in at least half of them in the last two years.

It found increased government blocking, filtering, legal action, and intimidation to prevent users from accessing unfavorable content and in other places, cyberattacks, misinformation, and other indirect methods to alter the information landscape, such as creating dummy sites.

“These states are increasingly blocking and filtering websites associated with the political opposition, coercing website owners into taking down politically and socially controversial content, and arresting bloggers and ordinary users for posting information that is contrary to the government’s views,” it pointed out.

It held the increased governmental nervousness in many repressed countries to the role played by Internet-based organization and communication tools like Facebook, Twitter etc.

“In 12 of the 37 countries examined, the authorities consistently or temporarily imposed total bans on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or equivalent services,” it noted.

The report found that out of the total 6.5 billion people in the World, over two billion now have access to the Internet — nearly double that of five years ago.

• Specific examples of Governments blocking or manipulating Internet chronicled in the report include the following:South Korean authorities blocked access to an estimated 65 North Korea–related sites, including the official North Korean Twitter account, launched in August 2010.
• A Chinese woman was sent to a labor camp over a satirical Twitter message,
• An Indonesian housewife faced high fines for an e-mail she sent to friends complaining about a local hospital.
• A 19-year old Tibetan was detained after looking at online photographs of the Dalai Lama.
• A Thai judge in March 2011 sentenced a web developer to 13 years in prison for comments he posted and for refusing to remove the remarks of others.
• In Thailand, at least one editor is facing criminal charges over reader comments that were critical of the monarchy.
• In Belarus, the country’s largest ISP, the state-owned Belpak, redirected users from independent media sites to nearly identical clones that provided misleading information, such as the incorrect location of a planned opposition rally.
• In Egypt, officials shut down the Internet nationwide for five days in January in an unsuccessful attempt to curb anti-government protests. The operation was accomplished within the span of one hour.
• The award for the best anti-freedom activities on the Internet was given to the Chinese government.

Among the strategies developed by the Chinese government, it is hiring people to post pro-government comments in discussion to drown dissenters and complainers. Such people even have a name, the “50 Cent Party”, the report noted.

“Recruiting advertisements for similar commentators have reportedly begun to appear on Russian job sites,” it pointed out.

“China has emerged as a major global source of cyberattacks. Although not all attacks originating in the country have been explicitly traced back to the government, their scale, organization, and chosen targets have led many experts to conclude that they are either sponsored or condoned by Chinese military and intelligence agencies.

“The assaults have included distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on domestic and overseas human rights groups, e-mail messages to foreign journalists that carry malicious software capable of spying on the recipient’s computer, and large-scale hacking raids on the information systems of over 30 financial, defense, and technology companies, most of them based in the United States.

“In addition, independent analysts have detected cyberespionage networks that extend to 103 countries as part of an effort to spy on the Tibetan government-in-exile and its foreign government contacts,” the Washington-based organization noted.

Stuxnet like virus strikes Iran

Iran has been targeted by a new computer worm dubbed Stars, the director of Iran’s Passive Defense Organization announced on Monday.

The Iranian experts, however, spotted the computer worm and are still studying the malware, Gholam-Reza Jalali told the Mehr News Agency, Iran’s semi-official news agency.

While no final result has been achieved yet, he said, “(However), certain characteristics about the Stars worm have been identified, including that it is compatible with the (targeted) system,” Jalali stated.

On Saturday, Deputy chairman of Iran’s Joint Chiefs of Staff had said that Iran will take pre-emptive cyber action against the centers which launch cyber attacks against the Iranian facilities.

“A research center has been established in Imam Hussein University to conduct research on this subject,” Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi told the Mehr News Agency.

“This research center will plan pre-emptive operations against the known centers that launch cyber attack on our facilities so that they cannot take such actions against us,” he explained.

He went on to say that Iran will take action within the framework of the relevant international regulations, but those who mount cyber attacks on Iran should not expect that Iran will not take reciprocal action against them.

The general added that the Armed Forces will also take measures to prevent the computer virus like Stuxnet from infecting the computer systems of the organizations and companies in Iran.

In September, Associated Press reported that a complex computer worm dubbed Stuxnet has infected many industrial sites in Iran and is capable of taking over power plants.

Stuxnet is a computer worm that attacks industrial systems and spies on them and reprograms them.

Iranian officials confirmed that some Iranian industrial systems were targeted by a cyber attack, but announced that Iranian engineers are capable of rooting out the problem.

Iranian officials said, “An electronic war has been launched against Iran.”

Reportedly, a state may have been involved in creating Stuxnet and using it against Iran.

Later a working group composed of representatives from the communications industries and defense ministries and the Passive Defense Organization was set up to find ways to combat the spyware.