Cyber war games

NY Times:

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The competition was a final exam of sorts for a senior elective class. The cadets, who were computer science and information technology majors, competed against teams from the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine as well as the Naval Postgraduate Academy and the Air Force Institute of Technology. Each team was judged on how well it subdued the threats from the N.S.A.

The cyberwar games at West Point are just one example of a heightened awareness across the military that it must treat the threat of a computer attack as seriously as it does an attack carried out by a bomber or combat brigade. There is hardly an American military unit or headquarters that has not been ordered to analyze the risk of cyberattacks to its mission — and to train to counter them. If the hackers were to succeed, they could change information on the network and cripple Internet communications.

In the desert outside Las Vegas, in a series of inconspicuous trailers, some of the most highly motivated hackers in the United States spend their days and nights probing the military’s vast computer networks for weaknesses to exploit.

These hackers — many of whom got their start as teenagers devoted to computer screens in their basements — have access to the latest in attack software. Some of it was developed by cryptologists at the N.S.A., the nation’s largest intelligence agency, where most of the government’s talent for breaking and making computer codes resides.

The hackers have an official name — the 57th Information Aggressor Squadron — and a real home, Nellis Air Force Base.

The Army last year created its own destination for computer experts, the Network Warfare Battalion, where many of the cadets in the cyberwar games hope to be assigned. But even so, the ranks are still small.

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It is good to see they recognize the threat and are assigning people to deal with with some expertise. China has suggested that this will be their primary avenue of attack in event of war with the US and Russia has already used it in conflicts in Georgia and elsewhere. Cyberwar will be right up there with UAVs in the new warfare.