Comments on: U.K. cybersecurity office to have attack role

In extreme cases, a government official says, the U.K. would launch a cyberattack in response to intrusions into its own systems.

[n3td3v]

If you "DDoS" then you block the tubes and therefore GCHQ for that time will be blindfolded, because signal intelligence in and out will be disrupted.

You've got to weigh up, whats more of value and worth our time, sending a packeted response to the enemy for a short period and losing signal intelligence, which may not be effective and we can't keep the DDoS running forever, or forget the DDoS and keep the signal intelligence uninterrupted.

It's not worth our time doing the DDoS, I want GCHQ to maintain its signal intelligence presence, DDoS just doesn't fit into the equation.

[Lerianis3]

I have to agree.... DDoS is good when you are trying to silence someone with a viewpoint that you dislike.... it's not so good when it's a government doing it to prevent an attack or respond to an attack.

[santuccie]

@n3td3v:

I'm sure the British government has more than one connection. Unless it's focusing all systems on the task, I'd think other agents can continue to do their job while a handful are banding together a network with sizable bandwidth to tell an attacker to back off. And again, they're saying this is a last resort. You can only lie for so long, letting the bugs chew on you.

That said, I wonder what would happen if they got into a DDoS war with the Russian Business Network? I imagine the British government would have more bandwidth per node, but do they have access to enough machines to take down a large botnet?

[Commander_Spock]

Well, well, well... just are we having here! Re: "The government has never admitted that it has the systems and personnel to launch a cyberattack. However, according to a senior government official, who wished not to be named, the OCS will have a role in coordinating cyberoffense capabilities that will build on the resources the government currently has...."

If one is attacked (an offensive is launched against a country's computer network...) then, if that country which was attacked launches an counter-attack... therefore, should not these OCS's capabilities be described as "counter-offensive" rather than "offensive"!!!

Let the battles begin.

Cool!