Hackers defeat US homeland security

Simulated attacks highlight weaknesses in cyberspace

A massive cyber-terrorism exercise has blown holes in the US Homeland Security network, revealing that the US is not ready to deal with sustained internet-based terrorist attacks.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the results of the "Cyber Storm" exercise that was carried out in February. Cyber Storm involved 110 public, private and international agencies which simulated a massive cyber-attack campaign.

Although the event results championed better than ever cross-agency communications, there were major shortfalls noted.

These included the lack of enough technical experts to deal with all of the information, poor private and public sector communications, difficulty in finding the right person to talk to, slow prioritisation of attacks and poor dissemination of information to the media.

“I want to get us to the point where we can measure America's cyber-security preparedness [but] we are not there yet,” commented George W. Foresman, DHS Under Secretary for Preparedness to the Washington Post .

David Powner, the director of information technology management for the Government Accountability Office criticised the results and said: “Both government and the private sector are poorly prepared to effectively respond to cyber-events. Although DHS has various initiatives under way, these need to be better co-ordinated and driven to closure.”