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Monday, Nov 23, 2009
Al-Botany, a graduate of Al-Mansour University College, one of Iraq's top private technical schools, was surprised to learn that the headers of his e-mails to a reporter showed that the messages actually originated from AIT's network. According to a reverse DNS look-up, the Internet protocol (IP) address from which the e-mails originated, 65.217.28.52, corresponds to the domain name "host52.atlantateleport.com."
Similarly, Al-Botany was unaware that BabilOnline.net and another site he manages, Iraq2000.com, as well as the Iraq government's main Web site, Uruklink.net, are all connected to the Internet through England-based SMS Networks.
AIT representatives did not respond to repeated requests by Salon for information about their services to Iraq.
Maggie Corke, a representative of SMS, says the company does not have any Iraqi customers nor does it market its services in Iraq. Corke did acknowledge that SMS provides satellite services to Transtrum, a unit of the Lebanon-based ISP TerraNet.
TerraNet's Alaa Sami Kadhem is listed as the registrant and administrative contact in the domain record for BabilOnline.net. Sami is also listed as the registrant of Iraq's Warkaa.net and Baghdadlink.net sites.
Sami and TerraNet representatives did not respond to interview requests.
Iraq's use of AIT and SMS was likely brokered by a consortium called the Arab Organisation of Satellite Communications (ARABSAT), according to Lucy Norton, an analyst with London-based World Markets Research Center.
ARABSAT, which is headquartered in Saudi Arabia, arranges deals with European and U.S. communications providers on behalf of Arab League nations. Following an eight-year suspension, ARABSAT reestablished links with Iraq's Ministry of Transport and Communications in 1999, Norton said.
However, U.S. companies providing data communications services to Iraq, even indirectly, are in violation of U.S. law and could be subject to fines and penalties, according to Rob Nichols, a spokesman for the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Iraq's vulnerability to cyber-attack doesn't end with its fragile network connections. A myriad of bugs and misconfigurations in its software make the embattled country's Internet-connected systems ripe for hack attacks.
Iraq's DNS servers, key machines that route traffic to various computers in a network, are misconfigured to allow "zone transfers," a reconnaissance technique used by hackers to target vulnerable machines.
A closer examination of one of the DNS servers, nic1.baghdadlink.net, reveals that it may be running a collection of outdated software with numerous high-risk security vulnerabilities. The apparent bugs in the system, located at IP address 62.145.94.1, include some that potentially give a remote attacker the ability to take control of the server.
At least one of Iraq's Web servers has already been infected with a computer virus. The system, located at the address 62.145.94.17, last week was attempting to spread the Nimda computer worm to the computers of unprotected Windows users. The server currently is unreachable.
Considering the variety of security flaws in Iraq's computer networks, it's a miracle they haven't been turned inside out by vigilante hackers, according to computer security experts.
"I'd expect to see some defacement activity, at the very least. It's almost as though they're extending an invitation to be hacked," says Robert G. Ferrell, a government security researcher. Ferrell said would-be attackers may suspect, as he does, that the Iraqi systems are being closely monitored by U.S. authorities.
Al-Botany and other Iraqi "geeks" blame much of their country's Internet backwardness on trade sanctions, which make it difficult to obtain current versions of software or up-to-date training.
Indeed, visiting Iraq's Web sites is like stepping back into the Internet of the late 1990s. A marquee scrolls across the garishly colored home page at Iraq2000.com, which hosts information about Iraq's Olympic teams as well as access to numerous Iraqi newspapers. Patriotic music blares on demand.
"Internet languages like Java and HTML, we didn't learn those because Iraq did not have the Internet until recently," says "Sameer," an Iraqi computer scientist who asked that his real name not be published.
After emigrating to the U.S. in 2000, Sameer discovered that his technical skills were anachronistic in the U.S job market. Though successful in the competitive Iraqi college, he has been unable to find work as a programmer. Recently laid off from his job in computer support, Sameer now lives with and depends for support on his brother.
The dearth of broadband Internet connections, or even affordable home dial-up access, creates further difficulties for Iraq's computer elite.
Ahmed Al-Shalchi, a computer engineer and 1992 graduate of the government-run University of Technology in Baghdad, says his only way onto the Internet is from a dial-up modem connection at his workplace, where he repairs PCs. Sometimes Al-Shalchi logs on from public Internet centers. But a home connection is out of his financial reach, he says.
Given the relatively poor skills and resources of some of Iraq's best and brightest computer geeks, how capable is the country of conducting cyber-warfare?
