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The cyber blitzkrieg
The cyber blitzkrieg
The forces of the perfect storm of climate change, energy tsunamis and global economic bubbles in collision are complex and varied; each with their own levels of threat and urgency. In this milieu, it’s easy to over-fixate on the more visible threats and downplay the others.
Case in point: The Iranian nuclear showdown has dominated the news and polarized the geopolitical world. While frightening, it has overshadowed another “real-time” threat of growing proportions: cyber-warfare and cyber-security.
It’s not a new threat. Our personal computers are barraged with viral assaults. The cyber firewalls of such giants as J.P. Morgan, Target, Home Depot, SONY and Anthem Health are regularly penetrated – with the loss of sensitive information on tens of millions of Americans at a crack.
It’s bad enough when hackers and criminals do their dirty deeds; it’s downright dangerous when nation states organize and deploy their cyber-forces against other nations in a harmful manner.
Cyber-warfare has escalated into a new global battlefield with ill-defined “rules of the road.” The barriers to entry are low, and serious cyber-attacks can now be conducted by tiny nations and terrorist groups against any nation or company. It’s a perfect example of using asymmetric warfare to attack a far greater force using unconventional means. Though cyber forensics are improving, identifying the source of an attack is almost as difficult as deciding on a response.
James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, recently reported to congress that “Cyber threats to U.S. national and economic security are increasing in frequency, scale, sophistication, and severity of impact.” He went on to identify Russia as one of the most sophisticated cyber adversaries and that cyber threats, in general, would be more of an “ongoing series of low-to-moderate level of cyberattacks from a variety of sources over time…” One can only imagine what he might say about this in a classified briefing.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
U.S. Media Dangerously Regurgitated Government Claims About North Korea and Sony – Truthdig
U.S. Media Dangerously Regurgitated Government Claims About North Korea and Sony – Truthdig.
By reflexively and uncritically repeating the Obama administration’s unsubstantiated claim that North Korea was behind the hack of Sony Pictures, the U.S. establishment press once again revealed itself to be a mouthpiece for—rather than a check on—power, and thus a danger to public security, Glenn Greenwald wrote at The Intercept on Thursday.
Greenwald began his critique by quoting President Obama’s Dec. 19 announcement that “we can confirm that North Korea engaged in this attack,” that the U.S. “will respond,” and that “we cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States.”
Two days before the announcement, The New York Times “corruptly” granted anonymity to “senior administration officials” to “disseminate their inflammatory claims with no accountability.
“With virtually no skepticism about the official accusation, reporters David Sanger and Nicole Perlroth deemed the incident a ‘cyberterrorism attack’ and devoted the bulk of the article to examining the retaliatory actions the government could take against the North Koreans.
Obama Sanctions North Korea For Sony Hack Which Was Perpetrated By Disgruntled Former Employee | Zero Hedge
US foreign policy just jumped the shark: a few days after both the FBI and the US State department were humiliated when it was revealed that it wasn’t North Korea but a disgruntled, laid off Sony employee that was responsible for the “hack”, and when the best possible course of action would have been to simply let this latest embarrassing incident fade from memory, moments ago Obama – currently not working out next to a rainbow or flashing his support of “Shaka” – just signed his first executive order of 2015, imposing even more sanctions against North Korea.
From Bloomberg:
President Obama signs order imposing additional sanctions on North Korea in response to country’s “efforts to undermine U.S. cyber-security and intimidate U.S. businesses and artists exercising their right of freedom of speech,” according to Treasury Dept statement.
Sanctions target 3 entities, 10 individuals
Including North Korea’s intelligence agency, arms dealer, North Korea’s representatives in Namibia, Sudan, Iran, Syria, China
False Flagging the World towards War – LewRockwell.com
False Flagging the World towards War – LewRockwell.com.
Almost all wars begin with false flag operations.
The coming conflicts in North Korea and Russia are no exception.
Mass public hysteria is being manufactured to justify aggression against Moscow and Pyongyang, in retaliation for acts attributed to the North Korean and Russian governments, but orchestrated and carried out by the CIA and the Pentagon.
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The false flagging of North Korea: CIA weaponizes Hollywood
The campaign of aggression against North Korea, from the hacking of Sony and the crescendo of noise over the film, The Interview, bears all the markings of a CIA false flag operation.
The hacking and alleged threats to moviegoers has been blamed entirely on North Korea, without a shred of credible evidence beyond unsubstantiated accusations by the FBI. Pyongyang’s responsibility has not been proven. But it has already been officially endorsed, and publicly embraced as fact.
FBI Busted Falsely Blaming North Korea for Sony Hack Washington’s Blog
FBI Busted Falsely Blaming North Korea for Sony Hack Washington’s Blog.
I Hate North Korea’s Leaders … But They Didn’t Do It
I hate North Korea’s leaders … They’re not only clowns sporting bad haircuts and weird clothes, but they live in luxury while the population literally starves.
But the FBI’s official assertion that North Korea carried out the attack in retaliation for Sony’s releasing the movie “The Interview” is B.S.
Here’s a sample of top cybersecurity experts who say that North Korea was not behind the hacking attack of Sony:
- Peter W. Singer, one of the nation’s foremost experts on cybersecurity
- Renowned hacker, DEFCON organizer, and CloudFlare researcher Marc Rogers
It Wasn’t North Korea Or Russia: Sony Hack “Perpetrator” Said To Be Laid-Off, Disgruntled Employee | Zero Hedge
First it was, with “absolute certainly”, North Korea. Then, out of the blue, an even more ridiculous theory emerged about the origin of the Sony hackers: Russia. Now, we finally get the truth, and as it turns out it was neither of the abovementioned sovereign actors who had nothing better to do than to hack movie scripts and racist emails: it was Sony’s own disgruntled worker who was the source of the hack. According to Politico, FBI agents investigating the Sony Pictures hack were briefed Monday by a security firm that says its research points to laid-off Sony staff, not North Korea, as the perpetrator.”
Researchers from the cyber intelligence company Norse have said their own investigation into the data on the Sony attack doesn’t point to North Korea at all and instead indicates some combination of a disgruntled employee and hackers for piracy groups is at fault.
But… but just a week ago the FBI was so absolutely certain it was North Korea it released the following statement:
Today, the FBI would like to provide an update on the status of our investigation into the cyber attack targeting Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE). In late November, SPE confirmed that it was the victim of a cyber attack that destroyed systems and stole large quantities of personal and commercial data. A group calling itself the “Guardians of Peace” claimed responsibility for the attack and subsequently issued threats against SPE, its employees, and theaters that distribute its movies.
FBI warned Year Ago of impending Malware Attacks—But Didn’t Share Info with Sony – The Intercept
FBI warned Year Ago of impending Malware Attacks—But Didn’t Share Info with Sony – The Intercept.
Nearly one year before Sony was hacked, the FBI warned that U.S. companies were facing potentially crippling data destruction malware attacks, and predicted that such a hack could cause irreparable harm to a firm’s reputation, or even spell the end of the company entirely. The FBI also detailed specific guidance for U.S. companies to follow to prepare and plan for such an attack.
But the FBI never sent Sony the report.
The Dec. 13, 2013 FBI Intelligence Assessment, “Potential Impacts of a Data-Destruction Malware Attack on a U.S. Critical Infrastructure Company’s Network,” warned that companies “must become prepared for the increasing possibility they could become victim to a data destruction cyber attack.”
The 16-page report includes details on previous malware attacks on South Korea banking and media companies—the same incidents and characteristics the FBI said Dec. 19th that it had used to conclude that North Korea was behind the Sony attack.
The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Intercept, was based on discussions with private industry representatives and was prepared after the 2012 cyber attack on Saudi Aramco. The report was marked For Official Use Only, and has not been previously released.
North Korea websites back online after outages – World – CBC News
North Korea websites back online after outages – World – CBC News.
Key North Korean websites were back online Tuesday after an hours-long shutdown that followed a U.S. vow to respond to a cyberattack on Sony Pictures that Washington blames on Pyongyang. The White House and the State Department declined to say whether the U.S. government was responsible for the shutdown in one of the least-wired countries in the world.
Internet access to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency and the Rodong Sinmun newspaper were working normally Tuesday after being earlier inaccessible, South Korean officials said. Those sites are the main channels for official North Korea news, with servers located abroad.
U.S. computer experts earlier said North Korea experienced sweeping and progressively worse Internet outages. One said the country’s online access was “totally down.”
U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday the U.S. government expected to respond to the Sony hack, which he described as an expensive act of “cyber vandalism” that he blamed on North Korea. Obama did not say how the U.S. might respond, and it was not immediately clear if the internet connectivity problems represented the retribution. The U.S. government regards its offensive cyber operations as highly classified.
North Korea threatens strikes on U.S. amid Sony hacking claims – World – CBC News
North Korea threatens strikes on U.S. amid Sony hacking claims – World – CBC News.
U.S. President Barack Obama is “recklessly” spreading rumours of a Pyongyang-orchestrated cyberattack of Sony Pictures, North Korea says, as it warns of strikes against the White House, Pentagon and “the whole U.S. mainland, that cesspool of terrorism.”
Such rhetoric is routine from North Korea’s massive propaganda machine during times of high tension with Washington. But a long statement from the powerful National Defence Commission late Sunday also underscores Pyongyang’s sensitivity at a movie whose plot focuses on the assassination of its leader Kim Jong-un, who is the beneficiary of a decades-long cult of personality built around his family dynasty.
The U.S. blames North Korea for the cyberattack that escalated to threats of terror attacks against U.S. movie theatres and caused Sony to cancel The Interview’s release.
Obama, who promised to respond “proportionately” to the attack, told CNN’s State of the Union in an interview broadcast Sunday that Washington is reviewing whether to put North Korea back on its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Defiant North Korea Says Can Prove It Is Not Behind Hack “Without Resorting To Torture Like The CIA” | Zero Hedge
Just hours after the FBI announced that, with absolute certainty, it had determined that North Korea was behind the Sony hack, a “theory” that has become the butt of global jokes, we learned, in a far less prominent release, that according to an internal inquiry, FBI evidence if “often mishandled.” According to the NYT, “F.B.I. agents in every region of the country have mishandled, mislabeled and lost evidence, according to a highly critical internal investigation that discovered errors with nearly half the pieces of evidence it reviewed.
The evidence collection and retention system is the backbone of the F.B.I.’s investigative process, and the report said it is beset by problems.
It gets better: according to the report, the F.B.I. was storing more weapons, less money and valuables, and two tons more drugs than its records had indicated. Almost as if the FBI was siphoning off cash, while hoarding guns and blow.
The report’s findings, based on a review of more than 41,000 pieces of evidence in F.B.I. offices around the country, could have consequences for criminal investigations and prosecutions. Lawyers can use even minor record-keeping discrepancies to get evidence thrown out of court, and the F.B.I. was alerting prosecutors around the country on Friday that they may need to disclose the errors to defendants.
A majority of the errors identified were due in large part to human error, attributable to a lack of training and program management oversight,” auditors wrote in the report, which was obtained by The New York Times.
F.B.I. officials on Friday said that they decided on their own to conduct the review after discovering during an internal audit that there might be issues with the record keeping for evidence.
In other words, there was human error, as well as willful “record keeping” lies.
Someone Is Lying | Zero Hedge
Someone Is Lying | Zero Hedge.
Yesterday, moments before the North Korea “hacking” tragicomedy escalated into full retard mode with Sony pulling The Interview, or a movie that absent the attention would certainly be a flop, Wired released an article titled: “North Korea Almost Certainly Did Not Hack Sony” (title subsequently changed to the one below as can be seen in the URL alias “http://www.wired.com/2014/12/north-korea-did-not-hack-sony-probs“), which however, and for the better, retains its content as it is quite critical in debunking the latest government “certainty.”
Continue reading here for the full story, because moments after the Wired piece hit, we got this “confirmation” from the NYT:
