Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared

U.S. intelligence agencies have upgraded their warnings about al Qaeda's use of cyberspace. Just over a year ago, a National Intelligence Estimate on the threat to U.S. information systems gave prominence to China, Russia and other nations. It judged al Qaeda operatives as "less developed in their network capabilities" than many individual hackers and "likely to pose only a limited cyber-threat," according to an authoritative description of its contents.

In February, the CIA issued a revised Directorate of Intelligence Memorandum. According to officials who read it, the new memo said al Qaeda had "far more interest" in cyber-terrorism than previously believed and contemplated the use of hackers for hire to speed the acquisition of capabilities.

"I don't think they are capable of bringing a major segment of this country to its knees using cyber-attack alone," said an official representing the current consensus, but "they would be able to conduct an integrated attack using a combination of physical and cyber resources and get an amplification of consequences."

Counterterrorism analysts have known for years that al Qaeda prepares for attacks with elaborate "targeting packages" of photographs and notes. But, in January, U.S. forces in Kabul, Afghanistan, found something new.

A computer seized at an al Qaeda office contained models of a dam, made with structural architecture and engineering software, that enabled the planners to simulate its catastrophic failure. Bush administration officials, who discussed the find, declined to say whether they had identified a specific dam as a target.

The FBI reported that the computer had been running Microstran, an advanced tool for analyzing steel and concrete structures; Autocad 2000, which manipulates technical drawings in two or three dimensions; and software "used to identify and classify soils," which would assist in predicting the course of a wall of water surging downstream.

To destroy a dam physically would require "tons of explosives," Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff said a year ago. To breach it from cyberspace is not out of the question. In 1998, a 12-year-old hacker, exploring on a lark, broke into the computer system that runs Arizona's Roosevelt Dam. He did not know or care, but federal authorities said he had complete command of the SCADA system controlling the dam's massive floodgates.

Roosevelt Dam holds back as much as 1.5 million acre-feet of water, or 489 trillion gallons. That volume could theoretically cover the city of Phoenix, down river, to a height of five feet. In practice, that could not happen. Before the water reached the Arizona capital, the rampant Salt River would spend most of itself in a flood plain encompassing the cities of Mesa and Tempe -- with a combined population of nearly a million.

In Queensland, Australia, on April 23, 2000, police stopped a car on the road to Deception Bay and found a stolen computer and radio transmitter inside. Using commercially available technology, Vitek Boden, 48, had turned his vehicle into a pirate command center for sewage treatment along Australia's Sunshine Coast.

Boden's arrest solved a mystery that had troubled the Maroochy Shire wastewater system for two months. Somehow the system was leaking hundreds of thousands of gallons of putrid sludge into parks, rivers and the manicured grounds of a Hyatt Regency hotel. Janelle Bryant of the Australian Environmental Protection Agency said "marine life died, the creek water turned black and the stench was unbearable for residents." Until Boden's capture -- during his 46th successful intrusion -- the utility's managers did not know why.

Specialists in cyber-terrorism have studied Boden's case because it is the only one known in which someone used a digital control system deliberately to cause harm. Details of Boden's intrusion, not disclosed before, show how easily Boden broke in -- and how restrained he was with his power.

Boden had quit his job at Hunter Watertech, the supplier of Maroochy Shire's remote control and telemetry equipment. Evidence at his trial suggested that he was angling for a consulting contract to solve the problems he had caused.