Posted on 07/08/2009 1:58:41 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Israel may have already started a war against Iran's nuclear program – not with bunker busting bombs and cruise missiles, but with computers.
Defense analysts believe Israel has been targeting the Islamic Republic's computer networks, to gather intelligence on the nuclear program and also to launch cyber attacks against it.
"This has become a very important area in Israeli strategy, and it has to be taken into account," said Alon Ben David, an Israeli defense_specialist. "It has become a more and more important element both for intelligence gathering but also for aggressive operations."
Experts believe Israeli intelligence agencies have been hacking into Iranian computer systems in an effort to disrupt or contaminate networks with viruses and malicious software.
"We came to the conclusion, for our purposes, a key Iranian vulnerability is in its online vulnerability," an unnamed recently retired member of Israel's security cabinet told the Reuters news agency. "We have acted accordingly."
The potential for hacking into foreign networks came to light over 10 years ago in Israel during a routine defense exercise. Israeli hackers managed to break into an Israeli oil and gas storage facility and officials were shocked to discover how vulnerable their computer systems had become.
Since then Israel has been upgrading defensive_mechanisms against cyber attack but also developing offensive capabilities, and defense analysts believe Israel's thriving hi-tech commercial sector provides plenty of home-grown expertise.
One advantage of this secret war is that the attacker is difficult to identify, making retaliation much more difficult.
"You don't see fire and smoke," Israeli weapons_expert Yiftar Shapir from the Israeli Institute for Security Studies said in an interview with ABC News. "Only when your computer stops working do you realize you are under attack. You can easily conceal your attack from the target and it's very difficult to trace."(continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
I don’t understand why everybody is aware of some of the stuff that is being broadcast.
Go Israel!
Iran has been at war with Israel for a long time, but let’s not let the truth get in the way of blaming “Jews”. No, let’s not... /sarc
Top notch in it’s day!
I’ve still got all of mine!
I had a TI 99/4A and still have a Timex-Sinclair around somewhere...
Man, we’ve come a long way.
Hey man!
Don’t be dissin my commodore computers.
I had a commodore vic 20 and it was a sweet machine :)
I had an Ohio Scientific as my first non-kit computer.
a 6800 developement kit was my very first one, back in ‘77.
When I left the Navy Deptament, we were running a PDP-11 in a climate controlled room, with the raised floor.
The disk was as large as a dryer and the disk pack lifted out like a large cake carrier.
A booming 350 Mbytes of storage.
I’ve 3 or 4 of those; too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.