The week opened up with more discussion about computer incursions in South Korea. It was also interesting to see another despot led country to be tied to cyber attacks. The thread of aligning countries like Myanmar to cyber attacks is very much a similar narrative stream to the terrorism thread of late 2001 and early 2002.
The week continued a thread from Monday and the weekend on Tuesday with a narrative that is very interesting. The idea that “hackers” could effect and deny governance. The basic premise being that law enforcement is completely unable to respond to the “hacker menace”. I can see in several non-news locations that this is being reveled in by some hacker groups which is incredibly short sighted and well.. quite dumb. You now have the components of local, state, and federal law enforcement who are already dubious technology users focusing that same level of scrutiny from terrorism to “hacking”.
With the attacks on Wednesday being discussed due to the Mcafee report and the principle of advanced persistent threat as the culprit it was not even Friday before stories started to surge from the press about the overstatement of the threat. To see a corporate white paper given such scrutiny but the attacks that are ongoing in the press not given the same scrutiny suggests a certain level of advanced persistent myopia in the press.
The week ended with a few stories looking at the critics of cyber attack with the “voldemort” reference winning the headline of the week award. To be sure cyber security is abysmal at best and the use of cyber space for espionage is rampant. This week saw a distinct shift away from “war” as a primary verb of discussion to “attack”. Not quite to where we need to be, but much better. War is an actual treaty and legal word with specific definitions. Since non-state actors by definition cannot engage in war hackers will have to settle for conflict and attack to describe their activities.
Since we have a hacker conference going on there is substantial press on various new attack strategies and techniques. To the reader you should be analyzing these stories to see if there is a trend, a pattern, or strategy that is common or perhaps inherently new. Rarely are you going to see something radically new. The standard pattern is to take a known attack and apply it is a new and innovative way. This is incremental research and not a fundamental shift. Read with a critical eye and try and get past the fear, uncertainty, and doubt inherent in the stream of media crying for your click throughs.
Monday August 1st
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| Myanmar: Cyber war: Myanmar leader in attacks in 2011 Spero News In the first quarter of 2011, 13 per cent of all cyber attacks in the world came from the country formerly known as Burma, ahead of the United States, Taiwan and China; in 2010, it did not even make the top ten list. Only 2 per cent of the population … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Cyber Defense Agency Faces Challenges From Within Huffington Post Vickers also expressed confusion about the agency’s role in a “cyber event of national significance,” asking members of the audience whether a cyber attack against a water treatment facility in Iowa called for help from his agency. … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Lack of cyber attack data complicates risk management Business Insurance SAN FRANCISCO—Good data is hard to find when evaluating cyber breaches and the need for insurance to protect a business, underwriters say. In addition, it may take buyers considerable time to decide to purchase cyber coverage, said underwriters who … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Web Will Win in Cyber War The Moscow Times It could only be called an act of cyber war against LiveJournal. The victims of the first attack were individual blogs — coincidentally, those that criticized the current Russian leadership. The second attack blocked the work of all the servers of … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Finance Department trying to fortify systems in wake of cyber attack Ottawa Citizen Foreign hackers also are blamed for a cyber attack last year on Australia’s Parliament that compromised the computers of at least 10 federal ministers plus thousands of e-mails to and from members of parliament. The Harper government has publicly … See all stories on this topic » |
Tuesday August 2nd
| Missouri Sheriffs’ Association website target of cyber-attack Southeast Missourian JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The Missouri Sheriffs’ Association has reportedly become the target of deliberate cyberattack that compromised the personal information of officers across the state. Representatives for the sheriffs’ association would not comment … See all stories on this topic » |
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Wednesday August 3rd
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| INFORMATION WARFARE: Secretly Arming For Cyber War Strategy Page Some of these firms have quietly withdrawn from the Internet security business, gone dark, and apparently turned their efforts to the more lucrative task of creating Cyber War weapons for the Pentagon. It may have been one of these firms that created, … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Most Americans aware of cyber attack threat: poll Reuters Recent cyber attack targets, which have included defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp., the International Monetary Fund and the US Central Intelligence Agency, have raised questions about the security of government and corporate computer systems and … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Bank backs down and reimburses cyber-attack victim. Finextra Before the Comerica ruling, a presiding magistrate in Maine ruled that Ocean Bank was not responsible for the loss of around $345000 from a business customer account following a similarcyber-attack. Since then California-based Village View Escrow has … See all stories on this topic » |
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| South Korea Suffers Worst-Ever Cyber Attack Infopackets Chinese hackers are being blamed in the wake of a recent attack on two popular South Korean websites, breaches that together resulted in the loss of personal information associated with 35 million personal accounts. South Korea’s SK Telecom, … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Cyber Threats to National Security IT-Director.com Tier one threats involve a cyber attack on critical national infrastructure such as water, gas, electricity supplies or indeed any other important computer controlled system that runs a modern society. These attacks would be designed to cause major … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Missouri Sheriffs Association Hack Highlights Online Security Risk OzarksFirst.com (Jefferson City, MO) — As the Missouri Sheriffs Association continues to recover from a deliberatecyber-attack that compromised the personal information of roughly 7000 law enforcement officials, internet security experts are sounding the need for … See all stories on this topic » |
Thursday August 4th
| WPAFB could be targeted in cyber attack, expert warns Dayton Daily News By Thomas Gnau, Staff Writer Updated 8:25 AM Thursday, August 4, 2011 Local observers say a five-year-long cyber attack against American companies, state governments and the United Nations should be a wake-up call for Dayton and its mix of government … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Bing the link: a solution to cyber attack GroundReport by David Stephen August 04, 2011 Cyber attacks have been a threat to internet safety and security over the years, it became a flood tide within the past years according to a report presented of late by McAfee. It is awful that a medium that connects … See all stories on this topic » |
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| The Hershey Co. baking recipe the target of a recent cyber attack PennLive.com FILEThe Hershey Co., which makes Reese’s Pieces, said Wednesday one of its Webpages was the target of a cyber attack by hackers. In a letter to the website’s users, The Hershey Co. said the hacker accessed one of its sites and “altered one of our … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Countries brace for The Code War CNNMoney McAfee, a cybersecurity company owned by Intel (INTC, Fortune 500), announced late Tuesday that it uncovered a wide-ranging, global cyber attack that impacted 72 organizations. A total of 36 corporations, 12 non-profits and 22 government organizations … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Feds seek hackers to help in cyber warfare Cal Coast News The National Security Agency has descended upon the DEF CON hacking conference to find and hire qualified hackers who understand cyber warfare. [International Business Times] “Today it’s cyber warriors that we’re looking for, not rocket scientists,” … See all stories on this topic » |
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| 72 Organizations, Including The United Nations, Hit By Massive Cyber Attack Examiner.com MacAfee, an IT security firm, recently released that they discovered one of the largest cyber attacks in the history of the internet. They will not release who they think is responsible for these attacks, but recent speculation infers that China may be … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Anonymous Hackers Test New Cyber Attack Tool eSecurity Planet By eSecurityPlanet Staff “The new tool, called #RefRef, is set to be released in September, according to an Anon promoting it on IRC. … Developed with JavaScript, the tool is said to use the target site’s own processing power against itself,” writes … See all stories on this topic » |
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| North Korean hackers hired to attack South Korea game network Reuters North Korea has been blamed for spreading malicious computer software that paralyzed Web sites of government agencies and businesses, and for a cyber attack on a South Korean bank this year that brought down its network. Police say the hackers, … See all stories on this topic » |
Friday August 5th
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| It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a cyber attack? CNNMoney But after work, the long-time buddies would take off their cyber attack prevention hats, put on their evil hacker thinking caps, and build their airplane in Perkins’ garage. For instance, it can fly over a Starbucks (SBUX, Fortune 500) and steal the … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Ongoing cyber-attack didn’t target military, officials say DoD Buzz By Philip Ewing Thursday, August 4th, 2011 10:56 am As uniformed commanders, civilian leaders and lawmakers have spent the past five years talking about how we really need to start talking about cyber-security — each event includes the same litany of … See all stories on this topic » |
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| ‘Jerusalem Post’ targeted by cyber-attack Jerusalem Post The Jerusalem Post’s computer system was targeted with a cyber attack on Wednesday. Hackers flooded email addresses with spam emails during the first phase of the incident. In its peak, ten thousand messages arrived in under a minute as part of a … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Banks Face Ongoing Cyber Threats InformationWeek Although financial institutions have to date largely escaped the fate of the US government and other industries, security experts warn that it’s only a matter of time until a bank suffers a major breach from a cyber attack. … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Report: Global cyber attack under way for 5 years eTaiwan News AP A computer security firm says cybercriminals have spent at least the past five years targeting more than 70 government entities, nonprofit groups and corporations to steal troves of data. McAfee Inc. said in a report Wednesday that the attacks have … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Chinese newspaper says denies global cyber attack Toronto Star AP BEIJING — A state newspaper has rejected suggestions that China might be behind a globalcyber attack over the past five years targeting more than 70 government entities, non-profit groups and corporations. The ruling Communist Party flagship … See all stories on this topic » |
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| Massive Campaign of Cyber Spying Uncovered PBS NewsHour JEFFREY BROWN: Now, a newly discovered cyber-attack on US and international systems. MARGARET WARNER: For at least five years, a high-level hacking campaign infiltrated the computer systems of more than 70 governments, corporations and public and … See all stories on this topic » |
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