US plans for cyber attacks
2010-02-17 09:13
Washington - A cyber attack disabled US cell phone networks, slowed internet traffic to a crawl and crippled America's power grid on Tuesday - all in the interest of beefing up US security.
The simulated exercise was in fact a dress rehearsal meant to give US leaders practice in responding to a future devastating cyber assault.
Dubbed "Cyber ShockWave" and organised by the Bipartisan Policy Centre (BPC), the event was held at a Washington hotel room transformed for the day into the White House Situation Room, where the president and his advisers typically meet to address national emergencies.
In the simulation, former top US officials debated how to respond as the power grid in the eastern US was virtually shut down by a stealth cyber attack and a pair of bombings, cutting electricity to tens of millions of homes.
Three large television screens behind the participants displayed multi-colour maps of the US with a series of alarming updates and a fictional television network, "GNN", broadcast news reports on the cascading crisis.
Retaliating
"You're going to see planes being grounded now. You're going to see trains not moving," said Fran Townsend, former president George W Bush's one-time Homeland Security advisor, who was promoted to Homeland Security secretary for the simulation.
The "cabinet members" debated how to respond to the situation and what advice to give the president, with suggestions ranging from calling out the National Guard, nationalising the power companies and retaliating once the attackers' identities were known.
"If this is an attack on the United States the president, as commander-in-chief, has the authority to use the full powers at his disposal," said former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick, playing the role of the US attorney general.
"We're in good shape from a command and control standpoint," said "Secretary of Defence" Charles Wald, a retired general and the former deputy commander of US European Command.
"We can take action offensively if we know where to go," Wald said. "Problematically, we don't know where that is."
The Cyber ShockWave simulation was drawn up by Michael Hayden, a former CIA director, and members of the BPC's National Security Preparedness Group.
Former president Bush's Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff played the role of National Security Advisor to the president, while former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte was Secretary of State.
Vulnerabilities
Former deputy CIA director John McLaughlin was bumped up to Director of National Intelligence while Joe Lockhart, former president Bill Clinton's press secretary, served as a counsellor to the president.
Cyber ShockWave was open to the media and will be broadcast by the CNN television news network at a later date.
The scenario was intended to "educate the public about our vulnerabilities" to cyber attack, said BPC vice president of communications Eileen McMenamin. "It's a problem that every person with a laptop and a cellphone should worry about.
"Things like this are happening like this every day," she said. "People really need to be aware of what's going on."
Three years ago, the BPC and Securing America's Future Energy (Safe) staged another simulation, "Oil ShockWave", which examined US dependence on foreign oil as a national security threat.
The non-profit BPC was founded in 2007 by four former Senate Majority leaders - Democrats George Mitchell and Tom Daschle and Republicans Howard Baker and Bob Dole.