Fake Cyber Terrorist Attack Will Get Real Government Response Next Week [Security]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Ub_BkeWRyMc/fake-cyber-terrorist-attack-will-get-real-government-response-next-week

Next week, for the first time, the public will be able to see how our government might respond to a full-fledged act of cyber terrorism, in a simulation that will include top intelligence and security officials.

On February 16, the Bipartisan Policy Center-hosted event, dubbed Cyber ShockWave, will assemble many top officials in the "White House situation room"—recreated by set designers in a conference room at the Mandarin Hotel—to respond to a multifacted cyber attack of which they will have no previous knowledge.

The attack, designed by security experts and embellished by professional scriptwriters (really), will unfold dynamically throughout the course of the simulation. The participants, including former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponter and former Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend among others, will have to figure out a course of action on the fly.

The fun part: we'll get to see how they do. Though the government has held similar simulations in the past, this will be the first time the process will be open to the public. CNN camera crews will be on location, shooting video that will run in the days following.

I'm curious to see how this group of people who are, of course, quite intelligent, but also, you know, quite old, respond to a fully-realized cyber attack. Hopefully they'll be able to sort out their firewalls from their Firefoxes. [The Atlantic via Computer World UK]