CIA for the private sector
Just under the flight path of Dulles International Airport in the suburbs of Washington, DC, sit the offices of iDefense, a company that aspires to be the Central Intelligence Agency for the private sector. iDefense is the brainchild of James Adams, a former CEO of United Press International, who has written several books on warfare and espionage. It was his most recent book, The Next World War (Simon & Schuster, 1998), that launched him into the private sector. Adams gives an exhaustive history of information warfare, as well as the US military's capabilities, stating categorically that the Air Force can track hackers back to their computers and launch "computer bombs." Many of our enemies, he insists, have the same skills. In fact, he says, an enemy's ability to launch an info war is a foregone conclusion. "This country is preparing for the last war, not the next one," Adams sighs, and picks up Unrestricted Warfare, a voluminous treaty on the future of war, which pays particular attention to cyberattacks on the commercial infrastructure. All of which leads Adams to believe that after companies have purchased their security platforms, what they really need is reliable human intelligence.
"Looking at how societies have defended themselves, intelligence has always been critical," Adams says. In the Civil War, for example, the armies used hot-air balloons to spy. "So if you accept that this is a global environment, and that the front line embraces the private sector, then the private sector needs intelligence."
iDefense, which doesn't offer security software, maintains a 24-hour intelligence-gathering team, spearheaded by Dan Owen, a retired Air Force intelligence officer, and Ben Venzke, a specialist in Middle East terrorism. The company's experts spend the day scouring everything from hacker chat rooms to secret Web sites. Many of them spend hours working the phones and even emailing hackers to uncover their motives. iDefense also claims to have paid informants sprinkled around the world. Its goal is to determine if its clients, including Microsoft and Citibank, are about to be attacked.
As proof of his company's success, Adams points to a recent "major" high-tech company whose server farm in France was on the verge of being hacked. "We woke their security officers up in the middle of the night and told them they were under attack," Adams says. "And I can tell you they were quite surprised."
Adams also claims that his company warned Starbucksâ€"-not a client-â€"of an impending attack. Indeed, Venzke says, they spend much of their time calling companies that aren't even paying customers. "We've called people up and said, 'You're under attack,' and they'll have no idea what's going on. Many companies just don't believe it when they are under attack."
Providing security and intelligence to the private sector is big business. Ubizen, for example, which is one of the top three Internet security firms in Europe and just expanded into the United States, also offers an intelligence service.
Since Eligible Receiver sent Washington into a frenzy back in 1997, no major attacks have occurred. No dams have been breached, no cities have been thrown into darkness, and the financial system seems secure. Yet everyone interviewed for this story believes info war is inevitable.
West of the Joint Task Forceâ€"Computer Network Operations argues that the government and the private sector have both made impressive gains. "Today, if a terrorist or another enemy wants to shut down power grids, SCATA systems [control and data systems], trains, subway systems, dams, any of that, they would probably have better success walking into the control room and threatening to blow someone's head off. Today that is a more likely scenario and threat. I won't say that's the case for tomorrow, though."
And Adams? He picks up his copy of Unrestricted Warfare and begins to leaf through it. "I have no doubt that the virtual world is where the next war will be waged," he says. "Why? For the first time in history, the weapons are available to everyone."
