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Threat of 'techno' terrorism being explored
Air travel, stock trading among potential targets
March 18, 1997
Web posted at: 9:03 p.m. ESTSAN FRANCISCO (CNN) -- Last year, a tree fell across a power line in Wyoming, causing a rippling blackout across nine Western states.
Now, security experts are wondering if a computer hacker could throw a virtual tree -- a disruptive computer message -- across the nation's communication lines, causing a meltdown of vital information systems.
"The telephone system, the public switch network, is vulnerable," says Clinton Brooks of the National Security Agency, who serves on a presidential panel looking at ways to outsmart potential hackers.
Also on Brooks' litany of potential targets: The air traffic control system, stock exchanges, the Defense Department, the Federal Reserve, the IRS and Social Security.
And he says many other information systems that deliver basic needs to people in their daily lives are also subject to attack -- traffic lights, banking systems and ATM and credit card networks.
Dangers and defenses
In October, the Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection is set to issue a report on the possible dangers of such cyber terrorism. The commission's goal is to predict the targets, anticipate the methods that might be used and figure out defenses.
"We need to all be slightly paranoid," says Ron Skelton of the Electric Power Research Institute, an organization of electric utilities.
The stakes are high. For example, air traffic controllers, linked electronically, escort plane loads of passengers from city to city. Since the days of the telegraph, railroads have used remote data to safely shuttle trains from track to track. If those systems are compromised, trains and planes could crash.
"We have identified more than 100 foreign nations" capable of "information warfare," Brooks says.
Basic steps can counter threat
Brooks wants a centralized national reporting agency to monitor the risks and coordinate reactions. And he says it should be established sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, some of the early solutions to cyber terrorism appear to be fairly basic:
- Separate systems. Air traffic controllers use at least three independent systems, instead of a single system, to land a plane.
- Isolate circuits. Data at the San Francisco command center of Pacific Gas and Electric runs down private lines that do not go through hacker-accessible telephone switching systems, as voice calls do.
- Encrypt data. This is particularly useful in situations where redundant systems or isolated circuitry isn't feasible.
"Encryption is probably the single most powerful tool that we could employ to protect ourselves in cyberspace," says Jim Bidzos of RSA Data Security.
San Francisco bureau chief Greg Lefevre contributed to this report.
Related sites:
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- National Security Agency
- Naval Research Laboratory Information Technology Division
- RSA Data Security
- Electric Power Research Institute
- Pacific Gas and Electric Company
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