The National, April 6, 2013
Cyber attacks the 'clear, present
danger' to UAE's most important companies
Awad Mustafa
Apr 5, 2013
DUBAI // Cyber attacks, such as the recent example that slowed the internet
around the world, have been described by a security expert as a danger to the
UAE's most important companies.
Last month's distributed denial of
service (DDoS) attack, which is thought to be the biggest-ever of its kind, is a
warning to key companies, says Tom Burton, the head of cyber security at BAE
Systems Detica, a British technology consulting firm. Last November, he says,
the prominent cyber-activist group Anonymous announced that it would attack the
top 20 oil companies in the world, which includes Abu Dhabi National Oil Company
(Adnoc).
How successful they would be, we
don't know," he said, "but the fact remains that the threat is real, it is
clear, it is present and it poses a danger to one of the UAE's most important
companies.
Last summer, Adnoc said it had a
team of 20 people examining how to bolster cyber security as the emirate seeks
to increase pumping capacity from 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) to 3.5
million bpd by 2018.
The DDoS attack last month came
after a row between an email spam-fighting group, Spamhaus, and Cyberbunker, a
web hosting service.
Spamhaus was attacked for more than
a week after blocking servers owned by Cyberbunker, a Dutch company that says it
will host anything apart from child pornography and terrorist material.
Non-profit Spamhaus has alleged
that Cyberbunker conducted the cyber attacks in cooperation with criminals in
Eastern Europe and Russia.
The attack was on a previously
unheard-of scale, peaking at 300 gigabytes per second, compared with an average
large-scale attack that would reach 50Gbps.
Retaliation attacks affected the
wider internet and sparked investigations by five national cyber-police forces.
Mr Burton said that DDoS attacks
are comparatively simplistic compared to previous attacks in the GCC, such as
Stuxnet, Flame or Wiper.
However, the trade-off of this
simplicity is that they are potentially more numerous, he said.
In effect, an individual can
undertake a DDoS attack if they have enough botnet computers (internet-connected
computers communicating with each other) under their control. From there, they
can ensure that enough traffic is directed at an organisation to achieve the aim
of reducing performance and, ultimately, forcing it to take the service down,
even if temporarily.
According to Dr Theodore Karasik,
director of research at the Institute of Near East and Gulf Military Analysis
(Inegma), the UAE has been very proactive in defending its cyberspace from such
attacks, which can be state-sponsored.
The UAE has concentrated on more
sophisticated threats as it feels that it has in place adequate defences for
DDoS threats," he said. "The Government in Abu Dhabi has contracted a number of
foreign companies to put in preventative measures to thwart attacks.
Cyber threats and warfare are
being taken very seriously by the UAE Government because it's the next wave of
warfare but it is here now.
Mr Burton said that the challenge
with cyber threats is that the landscape is constantly shifting, in part because
of the ingenuity of the adversaries and in part because of advances in
technology.
We need to be ever-vigilant and
continually test our defences to be able to withstand both the loud attacks,
such as DDoS, and the more silent, covert espionage activity, which is equally
damaging to our economies," he said.
It is also a threat that cannot be
countered by governments alone, in contrast to conventional threats; businesses
are on the front line and need to make preparations themselves.
According to the internet security
company FireEye Inc's 2012 Advanced Threat Report, malware activity has become
so pervasive that organisations experience a malicious email file attachment or
web link that evades defences as often as once every three minutes.
The
director general of Abu Dhabi think-tank Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies
and Research, Dr Jamal Sanad Al Suwaidi, on Wednesday said that virtual warfare
will become an essential aspect of military conflicts between states, adding
that the nature of future warfare begins with science and ends with technology.
amustafa@thenational.ae