Tokyo’s Cyber Emergency Centre at the vanguard of hacking defence

Across one wall of a Thunderbirds-style command centre a huge map of the world keeps a running log of global cyber-attacks. Bloodcurdling names dart across the screen as thousands of computers are attacked in Houston or Hiroshima or Hampstead. This is Tokyo’s Cyber Emergency Centre.

Itsuro Nishimoto gives an order to one of his staff, who hacks a nearby laptop. In less than a minute he can observe the person working at that computer using the laptop’s webcam. The operating light has been disabled; the user has no idea he can be seen.

“The cyber-attacker will tend to watch and wait until the user goes to the bathroom or to get a cup of coffee,” says Mr Nishimoto, “then the real assault begins. People talk about cyberwar as if it hasn’t already begun. It has. It has all the characters of real wars: attackers, defenders, innocent victims, fearsome weapons. Even mercenaries.”

To gain access to the victim’s laptop, Mr Nishimoto has used a piece of Chinese software — a ready-to-use package that is sold widely in Chinese hacking circles and is simple enough for a small child to use. But the real problem, explains the managing director of the Cyber Emergency Centre, are not attacks such as these but the online raiders his sensors are not detecting.

Cyber defence experts describe a rapidly changing theatre of war. One startling trend, Mr Nishimoto says, is how closely the growth of cybercriminality has matched the rise of the BRICs — the acronym for the emerging market potential of Brazil, Russia, India and China.

Governments are undoubtedly involved, he says, and the attack potential has now risen to the point where hacking should be viewed as part of a country’s military capability. Mr Nishimoto’s biggest fear is that Beijing’s tacit nurturing of its cybercriminal army is creating imbalances. “Cyber-attack capacity is like nuclear weapons: when there is balance, there is peace. When there is imbalance, nobody is safe.”

via Tokyo’s Cyber Emergency Centre at the vanguard of hacking defence - Times Online.

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