clydeiii/cybersecurity · Datasets at Hugging Face

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or killed and it is much harder to pinpoint the source and who is involved," he
told Sky News.
The hackers have also been targeting the website of Garry Kasparov, the
Russian opposition figure and former chess champion.
WASHINGTON POST
27 August 2008
By Kim Hart
A New Breed Of Hackers Tracks Online Acts of War
'Hacktivists' Update Their Mission
TORONTO -- Here in the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, a new breed
of hackers is conducting digital espionage.
They are among a growing number of investigators who monitor how traffic is
routed through countries, where Web sites are blocked and why it's all
happening. Now they are turning their scrutiny to a new weapon of
international warfare: cyber attacks.
Tracking wars isn't what many of the researchers, who call themselves
"hacktivists," set out to do. Many began intending to help residents in
countries that censor online content. But as the Internet has evolved, so has
their mission.
Ronald J. Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, calls the organization a "global
civil society counterintelligence agency" and refers to the lab as the "NSA of
operations."
Their efforts have ramped up in the past year as researchers gather evidence
that Internet assaults are playing a larger role in military strategy and political
struggles. Even before Georgia and Russia entered a ground war earlier this
month, Citizen Lab's researchers noticed sporadic attacks aimed at several
Georgian Web sites. Such attacks are especially threatening to countries that
increasingly link critical activities such as banking and transportation to the
Internet.
Once the fighting began, massive raids on Georgia's Internet infrastructure
were deployed using techniques similar to those used by Russian criminal
organizations. Then, attacks seemed to come from individuals who found
online instructions for launching their own assaults, shutting down much of
Georgia's communication system.
Two weeks later, researchers are still trying to trace the origins of the attacks.
"These attacks in effect had the same effect that a military attack would
have," said Rafal Rohozinski, who co-founded the Information Warfare
Monitor, which tracks cyber attacks, with Citizen Lab in 2003. "That suddenly
means that in cyberspace anyone can build an A-bomb."
The cyber attacks that disabled many Georgian and Russian Web sites earlier
this month marked the first time such an assault coincided with physical
fighting. And the digital battlefield will likely become a permanent front in
modern warfare, Deibert said.
Seven years ago, Deibert opened the Citizen Lab using grant money from the
Ford Foundation. Soon after, he and Rohozinski helped begin the OpenNet
Initiative, a collaboration with Harvard's Law School, Cambridge and Oxford
universities that tracks patterns of Internet censorship in countries that use
filters, such as China. The project received an additional $3 million from the
MacArthur Foundation. Deibert and Rohozinski also launched the Information
Warfare Monitor to investigate how the Internet is used by state military and
political operations. And Citizen Lab researchers have created a software
tool called Psiphon that helps users bypass Internet filters.
The combined projects have about 100 researchers in more than 70 countries
mapping Web traffic and testing access to thousands of sites.
A number of companies specialize in cyber security, and several nonprofit
organizations have formed cyber-surveillance projects to keep international
vigil over the Web. Shadowserver.org, for example, is a group of 10 volunteer
researchers who post their findings about cyber attacks online.
The small Toronto office of Citizen Lab, tucked in a basement of the
university's Munk Centre for International Studies, serves as the technological
backbone for the operations. World maps and newspaper clips cover the
walls. Researchers move between multiple computer screens, studying lists of
codes with results from field tests in Uzbekistan, Cambodia, Iran and
Venezuela, to name a few.
"We rely on local experts to help us find out why a particular site is being
blocked," Deibert said. It could be a problem with the Internet service
provider, a temporary connection glitch or a downed server. "But what's more
effective is blasting a site into oblivion when it is strategically important. It's
becoming a real arms race."
He's referring to "denial of service" attacks, in which hundreds of computers in
a network, or "botnets," simultaneously bombard a Web site with millions of
requests, overwhelming and crashing the server. In Georgia, such attacks
were strong enough to knock key sources of news and information offline for
days.
Georgian Internet service providers also limited access to Russian news media
outlets, cutting off the only remaining updates about the war. On the night of
Aug. 12 -- the height of the fighting -- "there was panic in Tbilisi brought about
by a vacuum of information," Rohozinski said.
Shadowserver saw the first denial of service attack against Georgia's
presidential Web site July 20. When the fighting began, Andre M. Di Mino,
Shadowserver's founder, counted at least six botnets launching attacks, but it
was "difficult to tell if it was a grass-roots effort or one commissioned by the
government."
The organization detects between 30 and 50 denial of service attacks every
day around the world, and Di Mino said they have become more
sophisticated over the past two years.
"It really went from almost a kiddie type of thing to where it's an organized
enterprise," he said. But he's hesitant to label this month's attacks as a form of
cyberwar, although he expects networks to play an expanded role in political
clashes.
Jose Nazario, a security researcher with Arbor Networks, said cyber attacks
used to target a computer's operating system. But he's seen a "tremendous
rise" in attacks on Web browsers, allowing attackers access to much more
personal information, such as which sites a person visits frequently. An
attacker then could learn which servers to target in order to disrupt
communication.
It's unclear who is behind the attacks, however. In some cases, the locations
of botnet controllers can be traced, but it's impossible to know whether an
attacker is working on the behalf of another organization or government. "It's
going to take a year to figure this out," Nazario said.

or killed and it is much harder to pinpoint the source and who is involved," he

told Sky News.

The hackers have also been targeting the website of Garry Kasparov, the

Russian opposition figure and former chess champion.

WASHINGTON POST

27 August 2008

By Kim Hart

A New Breed Of Hackers Tracks Online Acts of War

'Hacktivists' Update Their Mission

TORONTO -- Here in the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, a new breed

of hackers is conducting digital espionage.

They are among a growing number of investigators who monitor how traffic is

routed through countries, where Web sites are blocked and why it's all

happening. Now they are turning their scrutiny to a new weapon of

international warfare: cyber attacks.

Tracking wars isn't what many of the researchers, who call themselves

"hacktivists," set out to do. Many began intending to help residents in

countries that censor online content. But as the Internet has evolved, so has

their mission.

Ronald J. Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab, calls the organization a "global

civil society counterintelligence agency" and refers to the lab as the "NSA of

operations."

Their efforts have ramped up in the past year as researchers gather evidence

that Internet assaults are playing a larger role in military strategy and political

struggles. Even before Georgia and Russia entered a ground war earlier this

month, Citizen Lab's researchers noticed sporadic attacks aimed at several

Georgian Web sites. Such attacks are especially threatening to countries that

increasingly link critical activities such as banking and transportation to the

Internet.

Once the fighting began, massive raids on Georgia's Internet infrastructure

were deployed using techniques similar to those used by Russian criminal

organizations. Then, attacks seemed to come from individuals who found

online instructions for launching their own assaults, shutting down much of

Georgia's communication system.

Two weeks later, researchers are still trying to trace the origins of the attacks.

"These attacks in effect had the same effect that a military attack would

have," said Rafal Rohozinski, who co-founded the Information Warfare

Monitor, which tracks cyber attacks, with Citizen Lab in 2003. "That suddenly

means that in cyberspace anyone can build an A-bomb."

The cyber attacks that disabled many Georgian and Russian Web sites earlier

this month marked the first time such an assault coincided with physical

fighting. And the digital battlefield will likely become a permanent front in

modern warfare, Deibert said.

Seven years ago, Deibert opened the Citizen Lab using grant money from the

Ford Foundation. Soon after, he and Rohozinski helped begin the OpenNet

Initiative, a collaboration with Harvard's Law School, Cambridge and Oxford

universities that tracks patterns of Internet censorship in countries that use

filters, such as China. The project received an additional $3 million from the

MacArthur Foundation. Deibert and Rohozinski also launched the Information

Warfare Monitor to investigate how the Internet is used by state military and

political operations. And Citizen Lab researchers have created a software

tool called Psiphon that helps users bypass Internet filters.

The combined projects have about 100 researchers in more than 70 countries

mapping Web traffic and testing access to thousands of sites.

A number of companies specialize in cyber security, and several nonprofit

organizations have formed cyber-surveillance projects to keep international

vigil over the Web. Shadowserver.org, for example, is a group of 10 volunteer

researchers who post their findings about cyber attacks online.

The small Toronto office of Citizen Lab, tucked in a basement of the

university's Munk Centre for International Studies, serves as the technological

backbone for the operations. World maps and newspaper clips cover the

walls. Researchers move between multiple computer screens, studying lists of

codes with results from field tests in Uzbekistan, Cambodia, Iran and

Venezuela, to name a few.

"We rely on local experts to help us find out why a particular site is being

blocked," Deibert said. It could be a problem with the Internet service

provider, a temporary connection glitch or a downed server. "But what's more

effective is blasting a site into oblivion when it is strategically important. It's

becoming a real arms race."

He's referring to "denial of service" attacks, in which hundreds of computers in

a network, or "botnets," simultaneously bombard a Web site with millions of

requests, overwhelming and crashing the server. In Georgia, such attacks

were strong enough to knock key sources of news and information offline for

days.

Georgian Internet service providers also limited access to Russian news media

outlets, cutting off the only remaining updates about the war. On the night of

Aug. 12 -- the height of the fighting -- "there was panic in Tbilisi brought about

by a vacuum of information," Rohozinski said.

Shadowserver saw the first denial of service attack against Georgia's

presidential Web site July 20. When the fighting began, Andre M. Di Mino,

Shadowserver's founder, counted at least six botnets launching attacks, but it

was "difficult to tell if it was a grass-roots effort or one commissioned by the

government."

The organization detects between 30 and 50 denial of service attacks every

day around the world, and Di Mino said they have become more

sophisticated over the past two years.

"It really went from almost a kiddie type of thing to where it's an organized

enterprise," he said. But he's hesitant to label this month's attacks as a form of

cyberwar, although he expects networks to play an expanded role in political

clashes.

Jose Nazario, a security researcher with Arbor Networks, said cyber attacks

used to target a computer's operating system. But he's seen a "tremendous

rise" in attacks on Web browsers, allowing attackers access to much more

personal information, such as which sites a person visits frequently. An

attacker then could learn which servers to target in order to disrupt

communication.

It's unclear who is behind the attacks, however. In some cases, the locations

of botnet controllers can be traced, but it's impossible to know whether an

attacker is working on the behalf of another organization or government. "It's

going to take a year to figure this out," Nazario said.