Miriam Lord: Leaders keep Dáil entertained with cyber bluster

Never fear, the CSIRT is here.

“C – SIRT” is how the Taoiseach pronounced it yesterday while musing about the great danger posed to democracies around the world by international cyber crime.

He was referring to our Computer Security Internet Response Team – a shadowy collection of techie troops who police Irish cyberspace.

It “seeks international recognition with respect of peers in respect of Government and national CSIRT communities so it can effectively undertake its work on situational awareness and incident response”.

Clearly, Enda hasn’t a bull’s notion who the members are or what they do, or he wouldn’t have read a piece of that gobbledegook into the Dáil record.

It’s top-secret stuff. Although rumour has it that the CSIRTers “hang out” in the Department of Communications in a space where there are beanbags and beards and taoisigh fear to tread.

That kind of thing

"We've had evidence in Ireland here of attacks happening in certain places," Enda revealed. But his people never, ever release details of attacks or otherwise in the Department of the Taoiseach, because "that in itself would lead to those who conduct that kind of business".

This type of crime was in the Fianna Fáil leader's mind following revelations of cyberskulduggery during the American presidential election. He wanted to know what the Government is doing to tighten things on the security front here.

Enda did his best to reassure Micheál Martin that his experts are on top of their game, trying to sound as authoritative as possible while reading a prepared response he didn’t understand.

“IT security is taken very seriously in the department, not only in the IT unit but across the organisation,” he said.

Organisation? Is that how they’re styling themselves now in Government?

Anyway, moving on.

HR manual

A new security “awareness” training programme has recently been “piloted” and it is planned to “roll out” this training to all staff in the department in the coming months, parotted the Taoiseach, like he’d swallowed a “human resources” manual for breakfast.

The Russians will not be allowed to infect Enda’s network. Spam, viruses, malicious agents – the Taoiseach is aware of the dangers.

He just stopped short of telling the Dáil about getting his flu jab.

After Enda finished reading his high-tech statement, Micheál Martin said he was pleased to hear the issue is getting serious consideration.

“Literally, a whole country can be closed down by a concentrated cyber attack.”

Or striking gardaí, for that matter.

Gerry Adams and Brendan Howlin (two of half a dozen deputies present for Leaders' Questions) followed the exchanges with boyish interest. It must have felt like falling through the pages of a thriller. They were also most entertained by Enda and Micheál's efforts to converse about unfamiliar activities.

As men of a certain age, for them, hacking into a server probably means raiding the fridge after a night in the pub.

But these attacks wreak havoc.

Hack attack

Look at what happened in Washington, shuddered Micheál, when there appeared to have been “an unprecedented involvement or engagement by others through the IT networks to undermine people’s reputations”.

He was struck by the sheer volume of Democratic Party emails leaked. People who thought they were having "bona fide, honest, thinking conversations" found them hacked and released. "The act of the revelation, as it were, became secondary to the revelations because the content was considered juicy or interesting enough not to worry about how it had got into the public domain."

Before the internet existed, people would get into a room and bounce around ideas. Now, “privacy is out the window”.

The Fianna Fáil leader painted a worrying picture. Gerry and Brendan looked concerned.

“Cyber warfare is now a huge part of engagement and can wreak huge economic damage, whole systems can be shut down . . . without any of the conventional warfare, it can do enormous damage to economic life and the quality of life of many citizens. It has the capacity to hold whole countries to ransom,” warned Micheál.

Gerry and Brendan were on the edge of their seats.

Who ya gonna call?

Cyber attacks are terrible. But at least we have the “CSIRT” which resides in “the national cyber security centre” (who knew?) and “provides regular guidance and advice relating to current internet security alerts and threats”.

Who ya gonna call, so?

C-SIRTers!

Eh, no.

Minister of State for Europe Dara Murphy chairs the interdepartmental committee on data issues while he also "looks after questions on EU data protection regulations and implications for IT security".

Oh, thank God.

Given the threat, Micheál wondered if European leaders and ministers are working together to counter the threat of cyber attack.

"In my time at European Council meetings there has never been a discussion about governments being attacked, although officials may be in contact with each other," admitted the Taoiseach.

Meanwhile, the thoughtful nerd who crafted his statement on national internet security wisely included a little disclaimer at the end.

“The deputy will appreciate that many IT security measures are quite technical in nature and officials in my department with the necessary skills, knowledge and expertise provide ongoing appropriate support to me and the staff in the department in this regard.”

Tech stuff

But there was only so much tech stuff that Enda could read aloud. He looked across at his opposite number and decided to come clean.

“To be honest with ya,” he sheepishly smiled, “I can manage the fundamentals of the iPhone, but I could get lost very quickly in many of these fields.” So he returned to comfortable type by relaying a story he was told by a man he met – “one of those security people” – about how firewalls work.

“This is way beyond my knowledge or understanding – a mere citizen with a scope that’s appropriate to myself, [which is] I think, to make and send messages and receive phone calls and so on. I am not an expert in this field, and I admit that absolutely.”

A relieved Micheál Martin followed him down the confession route, as Gerry and Brendan chuckled away.

“I commend your humility and I join you and say: ‘Neither am I.’ But, I suppose, conceptually, we don’t need to know the detail. It is a very big issue.”

Whereupon he told his own story of a man he met who told him about firewalls.

Micheál admitted he hadn’t much of a clue about what he was saying either.

But other people do, and “literally a country can be closed down” by them. “And that is the modern warfare. If someone doesn’t like you or some country doesn’t like what you’re saying, without you even realising it, you get a wallop.”

They agreed Ireland should collaborate with other governments so “we can learn from others who have been breached and so on, like that” on what Enda called “the internet of things”.

That would be a good idea.