SA could face cyber war

By Candice Jones, ITWeb online telecoms editor

Security Summit 2009, 29 May 2009

SA's strong ties with China places it at high risk of cyber war attacks.

Speaking at the closing of this week's ITWeb Security Summit, in Midrand, yesterday, founder of ThreatChaos and IT-Harvest Richard Stiennon explained that, despite the low penetration of Internet connectivity, SA has a high risk of becoming a victim in global cyber warfare.

While Stiennon said the concept has long been regarded as something from science fiction, there are countries even now that are engaging in head-to-head cyber war attacks to bring down networks, or information stores.

He noted China is suspected to be the highest perpetrator of concerted cyber attacks to down sites, or to garner secret information. “The sticking point in cyber warfare is attribution. While they are close to proving China has been attacking several countries in this way, it has not yet been verified.”

China has reportedly attacked the US, the UK and Germany, and is alleged to have several taps on e-mail solutions globally. The US government admitted it suspected China had hacked its mail system and, while the full time is unknown, for at least three months had access to government communications.

SA could be at high risk, both from those opposing China and from China itself, should the attacks on other countries be attributed to it, Stiennon pointed out. SA has strong ties with the eastern country and could be a through point for these kinds of attacks.

However, according to Stiennon, some of these attacks require large amounts of available bandwidth, which SA does not yet have. This could be a cushion for head-to-head attacks on SA.

Despite this, countries like the US and the UK cannot be pleased with SA's relationship with China, and it could be a target for espionage.

Guerrilla attacks

Stiennon breaks down the types of cyber attacks that are commonly being perpetrated across the world: Security Defcon One, which is basic travel guides, warning travellers to protect information in certain countries; through to Defcon Five, where there are full-scale nation-to-nation cyber attacks to prevent information dissemination.

He believes the world is currently in Defcon Four, where purposeful attempts are being made at stealing government and military information. However, there have been examples of full-scale nation-to-nation attacks.

He cites the ongoing friction between Russia and Georgia, where for the first time in history, tanks rolled across the boarder, while concerted cyber attacks were made against the Georgian government Web site. At the time, the site was one of the few places where citizens could find information on what was happening.

One such suspected tap is on the Dali Lama. Stiennon says the Chinese government called the Dali Lama and asked him not to attend a high-profile conference to which he had been invited. The only knowledge of the Dali Lama's attendance was from an e-mail response to the conference organisers.

SA also has a political history with the Dali Lama, after preventing him access to a summit on human rights earlier this year.