Cyber Attack: The New Act of War?

Photo Source: http://ramkshrestha.wordpress.com

There have been a lot of cyber attacks incidents globally targeting both private enterprises and government agencies. Some limited to "seemingly harmless practical jokes” –such as defacing websites; while others involve serious DDOS attacks causing site downtime or information leak, translating to monetary losses in sales and advertising or worse classified data.

The most recent of these attacks is against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan's biggest defense contractor. MHI is the country's topmost weapon manufacturer from missiles to warships and submarines.

BBC reported that last August, MHI's 5 network servers and 38 PCs were infected with malware from an outside source, allegedly through spear phishing. The attacks infected 10 facilities across Japan, notably its Kobe and Nagoya sites which makes engine parts for missiles. While there is no lead yet as to the motive and the person behind the attack. The MHI assured the public that no sensitive information has been leaked.

Over the years of technological development, cyber crime has likewise evolved. What was once considered as a form of annoyance -such as the introduction of virus, have turned into destructive mechanisms destroying business networks and causing financial losses globally. However, what is alarming about this written attack is that the thrust of cyber crime is not about destruction anymore. It has shifted to information war, to be specific -stealing highly classified data, which could be valuable not only financially but more importantly politically.

As Matthew Lesko puts it, "Information is the currency of today's world. Those who control information are the most powerful people on the planet." Thus, we can only expect two things: more attacks in the future and the government as well as private entities taking active participation in online security development in terms of technology as well in law or policy.

News Source:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14982906

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Entry No. 14

Soleil Flores

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Is it worth it?

Is chasing cyber crooks worth it? This is the question raised by an article in CNN Tech.

It appears that there are those who say that trying to catch the cyber criminals is an exercise in futility. They claim that if and when authorities do catch the bad guys, those who are caught are mostly the middlemen. The head honcho, the mastermind remains scott-fee. Blame this on limitations on jurisdiction as a result of geography. According to Marty Lindner, “"The U.S. doesn't have jurisdiction on the [entire] planet Earth, so even if you can identify the author [of the malicious program], that doesn't give us the legal authority to get him, one, and two, it's not clear he's committing a crime," he said. "It's not illegal to write bad software. It's illegal to use it."

They propose instead to “develop new anti-virus technologies and to teach people how to protect themselves from Internet crime.”

The other camp, however, argues from the viewpoint of the traditional penal system—that is, the prosecution of these crooks (even if they are simply the middlemen) is a deterrent to future crimes.

My stand is rather diplomatic. Why not combine the two? Going after the cyber crooks and developing and strengthening new technologies are not, after all, mutually exclusive.
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15th Entry
Ralph Vincent Catedral

Breaking the Stereotype: Governments do it too

He sits in front of the computer monitor, staring intently at the screen, adjusting his eyeglasses every so often. Meanwhile, his fingers work on the keyboard like a true virtuoso, it is as if he were the young Mozart playing the grand piano before royalties in Vienna. After fifteen minutes, he grabs a big pack of potato chips, tears it open, and devours three pieces at a time. He pops open a can of soda, and mercilessly gulps everything down in one sitting.

He goes to the bathroom to pee.

Thanks to pop culture, this is the stereotype that we have of computer hackers, and sometimes of cyber criminals. There is not much picture of the government stealthily trying to bring down other systems, but the truth is, governments do engage in this kind of activity too.

The National Public Radio has an interesting interview with Joseph Menn (Author of "Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who Are Bringing Down the Internet") and Barret Lyon (a self-taught and self-motivated cyber-crime fighter who has worked with law enforcement and companies to defeat cyber-crime attacks and bring cyber-criminals to justice) regarding cyber crime. They talked about how denial-of-service attacks are done, and in one instance, how they were able to trace the perpetrator’s name and address in Russia. They also discussed the prevailing atmosphere of paranoia caused by these attacks, and how this attitude is not helpful.

Here’s what they have to say about governments engaging in cyber crimes:

DAVIES: So you’re saying that the Russian government, with dissidents and international rivals and political opponents, will either orchestrate or cooperate with these cyber-criminals to do one of these massive denial of service attacks and flood a Web site and shut down someone else’s operation?

Mr. MENN: That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s something that’s been suspected by a lot of really good researchers that have worked really hard to make the case, and it’s always been circumstantial. But its clear what’s going on here, and these people are protected by the Russian government and they're used by the Russian government against their enemies, foreign and domestic.

DAVIES: Well, Joseph Menn, there's been a lot of attention recently about cyber-attacks that appear to be coming from China and may or may not be connected to the Chinese government. What’s your view what’s going on there?

Mr. MENN: First of all, they are connected to the Chinese government. Even Google surprisingly made that, you know, as clear as they could. Google escalated - Google complained publicly about the hacking earlier this month. They went after not just human rights activists and dissidents within China trying to get into their Google mail accounts, but also after some of Google’s proprietary software….

DAVIES: And what are the potential consequences here? I mean, are they -what havoc or mischief might the Chinese government, you know, work with this ability?

Mr. MENN: Well, this - I think this is kind of a watershed moment. The China one is a really big one. Basically, what you have is organized crime in Russia that is going after your bank account, my bank account and lots of other things, basically about money and protected by the Russian government because they're used in quasi-military operations.

In China, you have the government supporting a massive effort to steal commercial secrets and military secrets in the U.S. And what the sophistication of the hacks against Google and others shows is that there is an awful lot invested in this, and they already have an enormous amount. And they see cyberspace as a way to catch up to the U.S. in terms of military domination.

Read the rest of the transcript of the interview here.
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Photo Credit: DailyMail

11th Entry
Ralph Vincent Catedral