Chinese hackers are determined to ‘wreak havoc’ on US critical infrastructure, FBI director warns::FBI Director Chris Wray has told House lawmakers that Chinese government hackers are busily targeting critical infrastructure inside the United States, including water treatment plants, the electrical grid and transportation systems.
The whole “Is hacking an act of war?” thing needs to be seriously reconsidered. Of course, if the US decided it was, they would be guilty of so many acts of war. And it’s not just the US. Everybody is trying to hack everybody and acting like killing people by bringing down a power grid is somehow different than killing people by dropping a bomb. The outcome is the same: You did something that intentionally killed people.
Of course saying that hacking is an act of war opens up a huge can of worms. Suddenly small time hackers are being charged with or framed for war crimes.
It’s a delicate issue, but I think it is worth revisiting.
You are correct. It would open a can of worms and many countries are comfortable keeping acts undefined. I watched a documentary called Zero Days and learned about how cyberwarfare worked in the past. I can imagine AI is going to take it to a new level. The documentary was called Zero Days, if anyone else is interested. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt5446858/
I will definitely check it out. A lot of what I have heard is from the podcast “Darknet Diaries”. I feel like it is pretty commonly known around here but, man… It exposed me to a lot of things that I did not know were going on. And that’s what is currently public information. What is not public information is probably way way worse. Another commenter below mentioned something about countries spying on countries, but what is currently happening in the digital warfare realm is way more than spying. As the OP article goes into, we are talking about attacks on infrastructure. That is not spying. The line needs to be drawn somewhere. Like… Attempted murder is a crime. Why is attempted hacking on infrastructure that would kill a bunch of people not a war crime?
The concept of war is changing rapidly in the age of information. Why would you deploy boots on the ground when you can use technology to break down a country from the inside?
Actual diplomats, where the rubber meets the road, are not going to use the word war.
I don’t think it needs to be a complex issue at all. Cyber is just an extension of intelligence.
“Everybody hacks everybody” , yes, and also everybody spies on everybody. Merely spying is not an act of war.
Intelligence agencies backing coups in foreign countries? Yeah, now that’s an act of war.
I read somewhere they have trouble hiring hackers because they ask if they’ve ever done drugs including weed and it’s an automatic deal breaker for the old farts running the hiring process. Also the pay is shit compared to what they can make in the private sector. I guess leaning on patriotism isn’t working anymore.
I don’t think it’s a deal-breaker for the government employees running the hiring process. Trust me, I know some UK civil servants and after the initial drugs test, most of them were very happy to resume their various indulgences.
The trouble is that you can’t be seen to employ someone to work for the federal government when they are technically committing a federal felony.
I reckon the vast majority from the lower level employees to the higher ups would LOVE to have weed, LSD, and other recreational drugs at least de-scheduled if not legalised, regulated, and taxed.
It’s politically difficult, especially in a country as socially right-wing as the US (on average, I’m aware attitudes vary from state to state).
Ever heard of political zealots?
People who firmly and undeniably believe in their cause so much that they will do anything for it. The Americans suffer from it as much as the Chinese and as much from just about any group. These are fanatical followers that will just give up their lives for their cause.
Research has shown that the pyramids weren’t built with all forced slave labor … they were built by fanatical followers that wanted to do the work and honestly believed in the rewards for the afterlife if they built these monolithic projects.
If you can get people to truly believe in something, no matter what it is … you can get them to work for nothing, no immediate reward, without intimidation and get them to move mountains.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The operation, announced just before FBI Director Chris Wray addressed House lawmakers, disrupted a botnet of hundreds of U.S.-based small office and home routers owned by private citizens and companies that had been hijacked by the Chinese hackers to cover their tracks as they sowed the malware.
“This is a world where a major crisis halfway across the planet could well endanger the lives of Americans here at home through the disruption of our pipelines, the severing of our telecommunications, the pollution of our water facilities, the crippling of our transportation modes — all to ensure that they can incite societal panic and chaos and to deter our ability” to marshal a sufficient response, she said.
At least a portion of that operation, attributed to a group of hackers known as Volt Typhoon, has now been disrupted after FBI and Justice Department officials obtained search-and-seizure orders in Houston federal court in December.
The U.S. has in the past few years become more aggressive in trying to disrupt and dismantle both criminal and state-backed cyber operations, with Wray warning Wednesday that Beijing-backed hackers aim to pilfer business secrets to advance the Chinese economy and steal personal information for foreign influence campaigns.
U.S. officials have long been concerned about such hackers hiding in U.S.-based infrastructure, and the end-of-life Cisco and NetGear routers exploited by Volt Typhoon were easy prey because they were no longer supported by their manufacturers with security updates.
Because of the urgency, law enforcement officials said, U.S. cyber operators deleted the malware in those routers without notifying their owners directly — and added code to prevent re-infection.
The original article contains 977 words, the summary contains 268 words. Saved 73%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Attacking civilians is an atrocity
Why do I imagine all those critical infrastructure sites still using Windows 95, maybe a few WinXP
