We have talked about digital attacks previously and now we are watching a digital battle occurring as we speak.
First an rogue group of computer geeks attacks the Egyptian government websites in a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack. On January 27, 2011, CCIRC reported that the hacking group called Anonymous launched a DDOS attack against Egyptian websites demanding they provide their citizens with unbiased media.
The government of Egypt then uses its powers to shut down online services to the public to reduce the ability of protesters to communicate with each other.
On January 28, SANS ISC is reporting that the entire country is offline. Press reports are saying that this is mainly because the unrest is being organized using twitter, SMS and other online services. Reports state that close to 3000 routers to Egyptian networks were removed and major ISPs went dark.
For more information go to the Internet Storm Center at http://isc.sans.edu/
Governments around the world, including the USA, are building the capability to disable the internet services within their own countries. This extends to the ability to shut down the internet networks in other countries or targeted areas.
We have yet to see what the impacts are when these attacks or disabling of the internet infrastructure is when it occurs in North America. It is just a matter of time...
