Cyber attack exercise reveals U.S. weakness; shows officials it’s time to act

By Chuck Frank / chuck@theklaxon.com / 02.18.2010

Updated on: 02.18.10 at 8:01 am

We always hear about how transparent our government leaders pledge to be. They never are. But, on Tuesday, that all changed—and for the better.

The Bipartisan Policy Center, along with Georgetown University and the National Security Council, sponsored the Cyber ShockWave Exercise, an emergency management exercise to test cyber security.

Emergency Management lives and dies by conceiving and planning exercises that focus on hazards, vulnerabilities, and preparing for the worst scenarios.

The exercises, when produced correctly, as seen in Cyber ShockWave, place extreme pressure on responders to work within the parameters of policy and training—and still remain spontaneous and disciplined enough to handle variables that may not have been planned.

The most successful exercises usually don’t go well. The variables introduced reveal weaknesses in existing plans that require further analysis and re-thinking.

What went well about this exercise was that it revealed myriad weaknesses, especially as they pertain to U.S. communication infrastructure and the compromises to U.S. cyber defenses.

There’s no question that participants were definitely overwhelmed by the steady pace of the unfolding quagmire of some 60 million cell phones going zombie, bombs exploding near power facilities, hurricanes hitting the gulf coast, pipelines erupting, aviation grounded and intelligence capabilities infiltrated.

The all-star team assembled to handle this Dr. Evil-like scenario included former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security and Policy Stewart Baker, former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, Deputy Commander of the U.S. European Command Charles Wald, and former Homeland Security Advisor Frances Fragos Townsend, among others.

The results of this exercise will become the foundation for a new way of planning, responding, recovering and mitigating the unending offensive against our nation and the cyber integrity of our most-trusted institutions.

Government bureaucrats rarely provide us with a model we can emulate. However, in this case, we are seeing the principles of emergency management at their zenith.

Let’s hope this continues.