Hacker Terrorism Hoax or Truth?An Internet video of cyber attackers actually hacking the lighting controls of a major urban building in order to play the world's most awe-inspiring version of the Space Invaders game is proof of either harmless pranksters creating a convincing fake video or delinquents targeting utility control systems for their own amusement. Representatives of security vendor McAfee believes it's the latter, while the rest of us who were raised to be a bit more skeptical think the former. He posits that an actual attack aimed at utility control systems will result in nationwide damage costing countless amounts of money and a huge psychological blow on the public's morale. Advanced Government agencies behind SCADA wormsSensationalist discussions about cyber invaders hacking SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems to cause power outages and other acts of terrorism have reached its peak last year, even though confirmed cases hover around the levels found in 1999 or even 1899—that is, zero occurrences of incidents of this nature. Now, abandoning that line of reasoning, let's address the fact that this video is a complete and total hoax. As for the making of his video, he used two separate Munich buildings as backdrops, and then superimposed the "enormous" Space Invaders gameplay during post-production. When the conference planners reneged on the deal, Brainstormclub opted to make the clip anyway. Eventually, the innovative video became an official nominee at 2009's Webby Awards. Perhaps the McAfee researcher should best occupy his time looking into legitimate hacker threats instead of squawking like Chicken Little over a false security alarm. |