CIA Fears Hackers, Anonymity

[jya@pipeline.com (John Young)]

CIA Director Deutch's comments in the Defense Daily 
article below about hacker surveillance and the national 
security threat of anonymity: 
 
   "Tools are readily available on the Internet, and 
   hackers [computer experts] are a source for any 
   foreign nation or terrorist organization," he said. 
 
   The personal anonymity provided by cyberspace also 
   aids foreign agents, Deutch said, adding that 
   "hackers, with or without their full knowledge, may be 
   supplying advice and expertise to rogue states such as 
   Iran and Libya." 
 
   The CIA and other agencies are working to collect 
   information about hackers and their activities from 
   both informants and from other advanced means, 
   including signals intelligence, Deutch said. The CIA 
   is working closely with the Federal Bureau of 
   Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Justice to 
   collect and analyze information about hackers and 
   their relationships with organized crime and foreign 
   agents, he said. 
 
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Defense Daily, 26 June 1996 
 
Deutch Orders Information Warfare Estimate 
 
The nation's top intelligence official said Tuesday that 
he has ordered a major review of foreign threats to the 
U.S. information, banking, and telecommunications 
networks.  
 
"The treat of information warfare and the damage it could 
cause to the U.S. is so significant that it warrants an 
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)," John Deutch, 
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), told 
the Senate Government Affairs committee yesterday. He 
added that disruption of the information infrastructure 
could give terrorists or foreign governments the ability 
to weaken U.S. national security. 
 
"Information attacks could not only disrupt our daily 
lives, but also seriously jeopardize our national or 
economic security," he added. 
 
Deutch said he ordered the NIE to focus attention on how 
vulnerable the nation's computer-based telecommunications 
and information networks are to foreign governments and 
terrorist groups, which are both, despite their relative 
differences in personnel and funding, potential threats 
to U.S. information networks. 
Information warfare is neither manpower intensive nor an 
expensive form of terrorism, Deutch said, adding that 
even the smallest radical group can exploit the 
unregulated and undefended expanse of cyberspace. 
 
For example, the Islamic militant group Hezboullah has 
been using the Internet and other modern means of 
communications for their daily operations, Deutch said. 
Such technology could also be used to launch a terrorist 
act on the U.S., he added. 
  
This NIE will determine the damage terrorists or foreign 
governments could inflict were they to combine 
information warfare techniques with conventional military 
tactics to attack the U.S. 
 
An NIE, which details potential security threats to the 
U.S., is usually crafted by the National Intelligence 
Council (NIC), a senior panel of career intelligence 
officers and academics. This NIE, however, will also 
include comments from the U.S. law enforcement community, 
the Defense Information Security Agency, the armed 
services, and representatives from the major 
telecommunications providers, Deutch said. 
 
The threat estimate is expected to be complete by 
December 1, 1996, he added. 
 
Preliminary evaluations conducted by the U.S. 
intelligence community suggest that such a coordinated 
information attack could seriously disrupt electric power 
grids, air traffic control centers, banks and the stock 
market, or even the operational effectiveness of deployed 
U.S. military forces. Deutch is concerned about the ease 
with which enemy agents can obtain the hardware and 
software required to attack the information 
infrastructure. 
 
"Tools are readily available on the Internet, and hackers 
[computer experts] are a source for any foreign nation or 
terrorist organization," he said. 
 
The personal anonymity provided by cyberspace also aids 
foreign agents, Deutch said, adding that "hackers, with 
or without their full knowledge, may be supplying advice 
and expertise to rogue states such as Iran and Libya." 
 
In addition to the high technology, computer-based threat 
to the U.S. information infrastructure, foreign agents 
could use conventional explosives to destroy key 
information facilities and data processing centers. 
 
Previous studies conducted by the U.S. intelligence 
community suggests that numerous foreign nations are 
creating "cyber-warfare" techniques for application on 
the modern battlefield, Deutch said. Those programs are 
geared towards crippling an enemy's command and control 
centers or disabling air defense networks, he added. 
 
Based upon the progress made by these military programs, 
disrupting U.S. civilian and commercial information 
networks would be easy, Deutch said. 
 
The U.S. intelligence community has begun several 
activities in response to the emerging cyber-threat, he 
said. 
 
The CIA and other agencies are working to collect 
information about hackers and their activities from both 
informants and from other advanced means, including 
signals intelligence, Deutch said. The CIA is working 
closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) 
and the Department of Justice to collect and analyze 
information about hackers and their relationships with 
organized crime and foreign agents, he said. 
 
Both the intelligence and law enforcement communities are 
trying to work with private industry and academia in this 
cyber-warfare campaign, he said. 
 
The Pentagon and the CIA may reorganize existing 
personnel and efforts to create a new information warfare 
center at the National Security Agency, he added. 
 
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