A "cyber storm'' of internet attacks is being mounted against dozens of New Zealand businesses and government agencies in a multimillion-dollar international exercise co-ordinated by the United States' Department of Homeland Security.
Other ``players'' with New Zealand are Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, as the USA tests a new plan for responding to an enemy cyber-blitz, including any attack aimed at vital services such as power, water and banks.
In the US, thousands of computer security staff are taking part in the exercise -- known as Cyber Storm III -- to boost preparedness and resilience as participants examine their response to attacks and improve information-sharing.
In the drill, mock foes hijack Web security infrastructure used by businesses, government and consumers to verify and authenticate online transactions.
They don't actually damage networks, but upend Internet reliability and relationships before launching major attacks against the government, critical infrastructure, public sector enterprises and international counterparts.
At the eye of the storm in New Zealand is the Centre for Critical Infrastructure Protection, set up in 2001 as a unit within the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to defend the country from cyber attack.
In September 2007, the then head of New Zealand's Security Intelligence Service (SIS) Warren Tucker, warned that foreign governments had hacked into New Zealand government computer systems.
Government departments' websites had been attacked, information had been stolen and hard-to-detect software had been installed that could be used to take control of computer systems, he said.
Mr Tucker said there was evidence foreign governments were responsible for the attacks.
In some cases, Government departments did not even realise their computer systems had been breached, and sensitive information had been stolen and attempts made to gain access to classified information.
Since then the SIS and the GCSB have boosted efforts to raise security awareness, and Cyber Storm II, in 2008, tested New Zealand's ability to cope with a simulated hacker assault on its energy and banking industries.
This time the attacks are expected to also probe national critical infrastructure and in particular their ability to recover from an incident and to co-ordinate a national response.
In the US the simulation is testing the newly developed National Cyber Incident Response Plan, a co-ordinated framework ordered by President Barack Obama.
US reports suggest Cyber Storm III's attackers will be more co-ordinated and that one goal will be to see whether defenders can easily assess the severity of attacks on different organisations while they are under assault.
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