"It’s official: Russia is targeting critical American infrastructure with ‘malicious cyberattacks’ Russian cyber operatives are attacking critical American infrastructure such as energy grids, nuclear facilities, aviation systems, and water processing plants, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The report details numerous attempts, since at least March of 2016, where Russian cyber operatives targeted government entities and multiple US critical infrastructure sectors..." https://thenextweb.com/insider/2018...n-infrastructure-with-malicious-cyberattacks/ "Cyberattacks Put Russian Fingers on the Switch at Power Plants, U.S. Says... ...[The U.S.] accused Russia on Thursday of engineering a series of cyberattacks that targeted American and European nuclear power plants and water and electric systems, and could have sabotaged or shut power plants off at will. United States officials and private security firms saw the attacks as a signal by Moscow that it could disrupt the West’s critical facilities in the event of a conflict..." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/us/politics/russia-cyberattacks.html
Cui bono? Symantec, The New York Times, the FBI, DHS, all very reliable sources of information... Demonizing Russia is very fashionable nowadays, oh wait I forgot Sergei Scrypal...
Since when did taking "logical actions" has become "fashionable".Russia can't match US in economy,diplomacy & conventional military strength so it is perfectly logical for it to concentrate on cyber warfare & cyber weapons that gives a high return against their low cost.Just like this every dictator having considerable finances should be expected to acquire nuclear weapons to guarantee their dictatorship.Not that USA is a saint & which should do all this things on biggest scale in world to maintain its no.1 postition again from a logical point of view.Only thing fashionable here is naive thinking that world is a good place where countries don't indulge in nefarious means to promote their interests.
US-CERT Alert (TA18-074A) Russian Government Cyber Activity Targeting Energy and Other Critical Infrastructure Sectors https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/alerts/TA18-074A
US Treasury Department Sanctions Russians Over NotPetya, Election Meddling https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/treasury-department-sanctions/
"Russian Cyberspies Hacked Routers in Energy Sector Attacks... A cyberespionage group believed to be operating out of Russia hijacked a Cisco router and abused it to obtain credentials that were later leveraged in attacks targeting energy companies in the United Kingdom... When a malicious document is opened using Microsoft Word, it loads a template file from the attacker’s SMB server. When the targeted device connects to the SMB server, it will attempt to authenticate using the current Windows user’s domain credentials, basically handing them over to the attackers. In a separate analysis of such attacks, Cylance noted that while the credentials will in most cases be encrypted, even an unsophisticated attacker will be able to recover them in a few hours or days, depending on their resources.... ...[T]he IP address of the SMB server used in the template injection attack was associated with a major state-owned energy conglomerate in Vietnam. Specifically, the IP corresponded to a core Cisco router that had reached end-of-life..." https://www.securityweek.com/russian-cyberspies-hacked-routers-energy-sector-attacks?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Securityweek+(SecurityWeek+RSS+Feed)
This is very disturbing because governments never announce publicly what their intelligence services know about an adversary's covert operations and there is good reason for that. As long as they don't realize you know what they are doing, you can keep tabs on them, watch them, stay one step ahead. Once they realize their cover is blown they will go to ground, start figuring out how that happened, change tactics and take steps to better hide themselves and their activities. So I think these publicly made accusations and others, often without solid evidence that the perpetrators really are Russian, are part of a concerted effort to create anti Russian sentiment in the minds of the public. That is the reason I find this disturbing because of course there has to be a reason for that but what is it?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesc...omething-we-should-be-afraid-of/#2d4d44a5dde8 As to the reason or reasons: https://www.strategic-culture.org/n...oison-attack-nord-stream-2-bigger-target.html Coincidence?
I don't think it is coincidence, I kinda doubt the gas pipeline explanation though because of Brexit. I wouldn't have thought such events in the UK would be expected to have much of an effect on EU policy.
What the Russian Power Grid Attack Can Teach Every IT Professional https://www.pcmag.com/article/359931/what-the-russian-power-grid-attack-can-teach-every-it-profes
Cyber-Attacks on US Critical Infrastructure Linked to Cisco Switch Flaw April 5, 2018 https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...l-infrastructure-linked-to-cisco-switch-flaw/
Kaspersky Lab Discovers Russian Hacker Infrastructure https://www.silicon.co.uk/security/cyberwar/kaspersky-lab-russian-hacker-infrastructure-231635
New Clues Show How Russia’s Grid Hackers Aimed for Physical Destruction https://www.wired.com/story/russia-ukraine-cyberattack-power-grid-blackout-destruction/
