PAKISTAN ARTICLE WARNS INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY OF DANGERS OF CYBER WARFARE

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 06586903
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 28, 2022
• Document Release Date: March 2, 2017
• Case Number: F-2016-02039
• Publication Date: August 8, 2012

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UNCLAS
SECTION 1 OF 2
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CITE OSC RESTON VA 982628
WARNING: TOPIC: DOMESTIC POLITICAL, INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL,
LEADER, TECHNOLOGY
SERIAL: 5AP20120808118004
/******** THIS IS A COMBINED MESSAGE
BODY
COUNTRY: PAKISTAN, IRAN, ISRAEL, UNITED STATES
SUBJ: (U) PAKISTAN ARTICLE WARNS INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY OF
DANGERS OF CYBER WARFARE
SOURCE: ISLAMABAD THE NATION ONLINE IN ENGLISH 08 AUG
12 (U)
TEXT:
(U) Article by S M Hali: "Cyberwarfare - New Arms Race"
Internet
OSC Transcribed Text
(U) This product may contain copyrighted material; authorized use
is for national security purposes of the United States Government
only. Any reproduction, dissemination, or use is subject to the
OSC usage policy and the original copyright.
Text disseminated as received without OSC editorial
intervention
Cyberwarfare has been defined as politically-motivated hacking to
conduct sabotage and espionage. It is a kind of information
warfare that some pundits compare to conventional warfare,
although this analogy is controversial and has dangerous
implications meriting closer examination. Richard A. Clarke, US
government security expert, in his book Cyber War (May 2010),
defines: "Cyberwarfare" as "actions by a nation-state to
penetrate another nation's computers or networks for the purposes
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of causing damage or disruption." The Economist describes
cyberspace as "the fifth domain of warfare", while William J.
Lynn, US Deputy Secretary of Defence, states that "as a doctrinal
matter, the Pentagon has formally recognised cyberspace as a new
domain in warfare which has become just as critical to
military operations as land, sea, air and space."
These perilous trends are evident from the disclosure made by
David E. Sanger, Chief Washington Correspondent for the New York
Times, in his new book Confront and Conceal (June 2012). He
discloses that in an effort to disrupt Iran's quest for
developing nuclear weapons and desisting Israel from militarily
attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, US President George W. Bush
had authorised the joint US-Israeli development of cyber weapons
to sabotage Iranian nuclear plants. According to Sanger, the
operation codenamed "Olympic Games" instituted in 2006 aimed at
creating a computer worm, which would penetrate and destroy
Iran's nuclear facilities. Sanger's chilling narrative - based on
interviews of current and former American, European and Israeli
officials involved in the programme - reveals that the first
stage involved inserting a "beacon" into the Iranian computers,
with the help of a clandestine action through the German company
Siemens and an Iranian manufacturer to map their operations. The
goal was to gain access to the Natanz plant's industrial computer
controls by leaping the electronic moat, which cut it (the plant)
off from the Internet called the air gap, because it physically
separates the facility from the outside world. The computer code
would invade the specialised computers that command the
centrifuges. This enabled the beacon to draw the equivalent of an
electrical blueprint of the Natanz plant to understand how the
computers control the giant silvery centrifuges that spin at
tremendous speeds, seize control of the centrifuges and
facilitate their failure by electronically varying their speed of
rotation, causing the rotors to destroy the centrifuge.
For years, the CIA had introduced faulty parts and designs into
Iran's systems - even tinkering with imported power supplies so
that they would blow up - but the sabotage had had relatively
little effect. Under "Olympic Games", the US-Israeli nexus
developed a complex worm that necessitated testing.
Sanger divulges that the US began building replicas of Iran's P-1
centrifuges, an aging, unreliable design. The US already owned
some P-is, which the Libyan strongman, Colonel Moammar
Al-Qaddafi, had reportedly acquired from Pakistan and then
surrendered to the US in 2003, which were placed in storage at a
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weapons laboratory in Tennessee. The military and intelligence
officials overseeing "Olympic Games" borrowed some for what they
termed "destructive testing", essentially building a virtual
replica of Natanz, but spreading the test over several of the
Energy Department's national laboratories to keep even the most
trusted nuclear workers from figuring out what was afoot.
Sanger reveals that President Barack Obama authorised the cyber
attacks on Natanz and despite a 2010 hiccup, destroyed more than
1,000 of the 5,000 centrifuges Iran had spinning at the time to
purify uranium, setting back the Iranian nuclear programme by 18
months. The US government only recently acknowledged developing
cyber weapons, but has never admitted using them. There have been
reports of one-time attacks against personal computers used by
members of Al-Qaeda, and of contemplated attacks against the
computers that run air defence systems, including during the
Nato-led air attack on Libya last year. But "Olympic Games" was
of an entirely different type and sophistication.
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Apparently, for the first time, the US has repeatedly used cyber
weapons to cripple another country's infrastructure, achieving
with computer code what until then could be accomplished only by
bombing a country or sending in agents to plant explosives. In
executing these attacks, the US has unleashed a new weapon, which
can have lethal consequences. Imagine disrupting air traffic
operations or the power sources of a hostile nation, which could
cripple hospitals and banks. The demon unleashed through
cyberwarfare can well target the US too and would know no bounds.
To rein in this latest arms race, the rules of engagement must be
redrawn to avoid an apocalypse.
Description of Source: Islamabad The Nation Online in English
Website of a conservative daily, part of the Nawa-i-Waqt
publishing group. Circulation around 20,000; URL:
http://www.nation.com.pk
(U) This product may contain copyrighted material; authorized use
is for national security purposes of the United States Government
only. Any reproduction, dissemination, or use is subject to the
OSC usage policy and the original copyright.
Source Metadata
Source Name: The Nation Online
Source Type(s): Internet
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Source
Source
Source
Source
Language(s):
Article Metadata
Document ID:
Content Type:
Processing Ind:
Precedence:
Country(s):
Region(s):
Subregion(s):
Topic(s):
LEADER, TECHNOLOGY
City: Islamabad
Country: Pakistan
Start Date: 08 Aug 12
End Date: 08 Aug 12
English
5AP20120808118004
Translation/Transcription
OSC Transcribed Text
Routine
Pakistan, Iran, Israel, United States
Asia, Middle East, Americas
South Asia, Middle East, North Americas
DOMESTIC POLITICAL, INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL,
CABLETYPE: FBISEMS ACP 1.0.
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