“It’s A Jungle Out There!”

[Richard Allan Jenni]

First a tidbit from an old post of mine about the international banking cartel: “Putting his reelection entirely at risk in 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoed early renewal of the Second National Bank’s charter. In his second term, Jackson ordered the withdrawal of all federal funds from its vaults- and fired two treasury secretaries before finding one who would carry out that order. Jackson thereby greatly reduced the bank’s lending power- and the anemic financial institution gasped its last breath when the charter expired in 1836. When President Jackson was asked to identify his greatest accomplishment, he answered tersely, ‘I killed the bank.’ ”

Now a brief look at cyberthreats to our national security.

US Homeland Security begins its first test of a cyber-blitz response plan today. However, it appears a few hackers, possibly Russian, got a head start yesterday when trading of Progress Energy stock was halted by a US volatility curb.

The cause of the sudden dive of Progress Energy from $44.50 a share to $4.57 was explained as ostensibly a typo, namely a misplaced decimal point during a sale. Nevertheless, I am told that safeguards are in place to prevent such a mistake. The same source also tells me that the Wall Street computers are hacked on a fairly regular basis- and that the public would lose enormous confidence in Wall Street if those intrusions were widely publicized.

More than 50 affected Nasdaq transactions were cancelled, and Progress Energy sold for $43.90 after the pause. “Based on rules for when errant orders are canceled, exchanges must void trades that occur 5 percent lower than the trigger price for the circuit breaker for a stock priced between $25 and $50. Nasdaq canceled trades that took place before the circuit breaker kicked in that were $38.10 or lower.” However, that would leave room for considerable profit to hackers, since that stock immediately rose from $38.11 to $43.90.

In “Hacking Wall Street,” author Karlos Krinklebine “exposes the who, what, why and how of today's professional hackers as they attempt and often succeed in stealing the identities of millions of consumers and swindle Wall Street's largest financial services firms out of millions of dollars. For the first time, look inside the world of the new generation cyber criminal with detailed descriptions of modern phishing toolkits, Trojans, pump and dump schemes and advanced malware distribution systems.”

Also, one might question the wisdom of advance publicity for the first test of a cyber-blitz response plan- as if Homeland Security was inviting every interested hacker on Planet Earth to join in the fun.

And this from CNN on 10 March 2010: “The Pentagon is training people to hack into its own computer networks. ‘To beat a hacker, you need to think like one,’ said Jay Bavisi, co-founder and president of the International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants, or EC-Council. His company was chosen by the Pentagon to oversee training of Department of Defense employees who work in computer security-related jobs and certify them when the training is complete. The Department of Defense does not consider this hacking.” I wonder if those Pentagon trainees include anyone like Nidal Malik Hasan…

And our power grids? According to Newser back on 20 January 2008: “Foreign extortionists have managed to hack into US power grids and shut them down, PC World reports, citing a CIA analyst speaking at a security conference this week. ‘In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks, but all involved intrusions through the Internet,’ the analyst said.”

More recently on 8 April 2009: “Computer hackers have embedded software in the United States' electricity grid and other infrastructure that could potentially disrupt service or damage equipment, two former federal officials told CNN. The code in the power grid was discovered in 2006 or 2007, according to one of the officials, who called it ‘the 21st century version of Cold War spying.’ ”

And you’re gonna love this story from Fox of 11 June 2010: “10 Everyday Items Hackers Are Targeting Right Now.”

Contemplating the vulnerability of our own home computers as they are constantly bombarded with everything from tracking cookies to deadly viruses, one wonders if becoming increasingly dependent on modern technology may yet prove more bane than boon. Moreover, the federal government’s lax and irresponsible attitude toward national security along the southern border begs the question, “Are our borders in cyberspace any more secure?”

We’ll soon hold what might be our most important elections ever. The Dems are desperate- and desperate people do desperate things. Will hackers play a role in voter fraud? Create last-minute emergencies to hamper elections in key Republican precincts? Leave nothing to chance. Make election preparations well in advance. Think I’m nuts? Paranoid? As Monk said, “It’s a jungle out there.”