[CAnet - news] The backhoe: A real terrorist threat against telecom?

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http://wired.com/news/technology/0,70040-0.html?tw=wn_tophead_1

[From a Nanog posting. Some excerpts -- BSA]



The Backhoe: A Real Cyberthreat

 A study issued last month by the Common Ground Alliance, or CGA -- an
industry group comprised of utilities and construction companies --
calculated that there were more than 675,000 excavation accidents in 2004 in
which underground cables or pipelines were damaged. And an October report
from the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions found that cable
dig-ups were the single most common cause of telecom outages over a 12-year
period ending in 2004, with the number of incidents dropping in recent years
but the severity and duration of the outages increasing.

In 2004, Department of Homeland Security officials became fearful that
terrorists might start using accidental dig-ups as a road map for deliberate
attacks, and convinced the FCC to begin locking up previously public data on
outages. In a commission filing, DHS argued successfully that revealing the
details of "even a single event may present a grave risk to the
infrastructure."

"We see people talking about the digital Pearl Harbor from the worms and
Trojans and viruses," says Howard Schmidt, former White House cybersecurity
adviser. "But in all probability, there's more likelihood of what we call
the 'backhoe attack' that would have more impact on a region then a Code
Red, or anything we've seen so far."


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those  of the CANARIE board or management.


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