[LINK] Simulation of Cybergedon

[Jan Whitaker]

Interesting story about a simulation:

Former US officials fend off mock cyber attack (18 February 2010)
  http://www.theage.com.au/technology/security/former-us-officials-fend-off-mock-cyber-attack-20100217-obto.html
  http://snipurl.com/uef5g

Former top US officials staged a digital doomsday simulation on 
Tuesday in which a huge cyber attack crashes mobile networks, slows 
Web traffic to a crawl and plunges major cities into darkness.

Dubbed "Cyber ShockWave," the elaborate exercise was held in 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.

Former president George W. Bush's Homeland Security chief Michael 
Chertoff played the role of National Security Advisor as the 
"cabinet" sought to respond to a nightmare scenario drawn up by 
former CIA director Michael Hayden.

As the "crisis" escalated, the officials discussed various actions 
including calling out the National Guard, nationalising the utility 
companies and staging a retaliatory strike if the authors of the 
cyberattack become 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, in her 
role as attorney general.

"We're in good shape from a command-and-control standpoint," Charles 
Wald, a retired general acting as Secretary of Defense, reassured the team.

"We can take action offensively if we know where to go," said Wald, 
former deputy commander of US European Command. "Problematically, we 
don't know where that is."

"I do think we need to be careful about talking about acts of war," 
cautioned John Negroponte, the former Director of National 
Intelligence who switched hats for the simulation to portray the 
Secretary of State.

The exercise, which was filmed by CNN and will be broadcast at a 
later date, was organized by the Bipartisan Policy Center to "educate 
the public about our vulnerabilities," said Eileen McMenamin, BPC 
vice president of communications.

Three large video screens behind the participants displayed 
multi-color maps of the United States with a series of mock updates 
and a fictional television network, "GNN," broadcast news reports on 
the cascading crisis.
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