Former Government Officials Gather to Rehearse Cyberwar

WASHINGTON (Feb. 16) -- Should a president carry out renditions of foreign individuals suspected of helping to carry out a cyber-attack against the U.S.?

This was just one of the intriguing questions raised today by former senior government officials taking part in a simulated cyber-attack, called Cyber ShockWave. Hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the exercise, designed by former CIA Director Michael Hayden, included former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff playing the national security adviser, and former CIA Director John McLaughlin as the director of national intelligence.

The three-hour exercise, held at Washington's Mandarin Oriental hotel, was more of a role-playing exercise than a full simulation. Panel members seated behind a table debated options they could present to the president, as real-time updates on the situation were provided.

At times, participants in the exercise seemed to be grasping at concepts from the global war on terror, posing similar questions about how to deal with countries that provide a haven for cyberterrorists, or whether the president needed to declare the cyber-attack an act of war.

But as the scenario unfolded, officials at times were at a loss for how to respond. The "attacks" began with a computer worm spread through a free NCAA March Madness smart phone application, and then quickly spread through the country as telecommunications were shut down, the Internet slowed to a crawl, and large power blackouts were triggered by coordinated bomb attacks.

The intelligence community might be able to track down the attacks to a specific country or even pinpoint computer servers, but figuring out precisely what person or group is behind the attack may be impossible. "Without attribution, we can't go to the issue of retaliation," McLaughlin said.

With the simulation, the attacks were first traced to Russian servers in Irkutsk, Siberia, and then eventually to an individual in Sudan, who is suspected of helping to facilitate the attacks. "We have the power to do rendition," suggested Jamie Goerlick, the former U.S. deputy attorney general, who played the attorney general.

At many points in the exercise, however, it seemed as if talk of a cyber-retaliation was vague at best. How useful, after all, are retaliatory attacks against suspected cyberwarriors in the midst of an infrastructure meltdown in the U.S.?

Former White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart, who played the part of counselor to the president, compared the situation to five hurricanes descending on the U.S. "It's like we're going to retaliate against the Gulf of Mexico," he said.