This is a pretty scary article. And yet I have to say it’s weird to say we are pre-war. Ukraine certainly isn’t. So shouldn’t any scenario outlined in that article happen there already? The mobile network there seems to be operational.
Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
141–150 of 286 posts
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#142I cannot agree more with the author’s point of view. As an illustration, many people want to use GPS for the safe positioning of trains in the European Train Control Systems. This makes the space sector happy because it justifies the expenditures incurred for putting things like Galileo in orbit. However, in a pre-war check exercise, one immediately come to the conclusion that all European trains would crawl to a sto…
Railroads should absolutely use GPS. They also should supplement it with local transmitters, like aviation does. They should have lots and lots of local transmitters.
Rails has clever systems for locating trains by detecting circuit shorted by trains' wheels, no need to replace that with GPS. Besides railroads passes valleys and tunnels, GPS won't work anyway.
The absolute last resort for trains is semaphores and mutexes based on physical tokens. Those concepts came from there, and were still used sometimes to this day. Doesn't sound high tech, but it works.
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#143I cannot agree more with the author’s point of view. As an illustration, many people want to use GPS for the safe positioning of trains in the European Train Control Systems. This makes the space sector happy because it justifies the expenditures incurred for putting things like Galileo in orbit. However, in a pre-war check exercise, one immediately come to the conclusion that all European trains would crawl to a sto…
Not sure I entirely agree? #1 > Or disable a hospital. The entire Ascension Healthcare system of hospitals (142 hospitals, 2600 total facilities) in on divert since 8 May because they had to switch back to paper records. Change Healthcare has lost $872M since it was attacked in February. Maybe it's more like the pandemic: seems like nothing, unless it affects you . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(healthcare_…
I find it additionally odd that the author calls this era pre war. Ukraine is certainly at war right now with a very potent cyber state. Their infrastructure seems to hold up ok. It’s not perfect but definitely not doomsday like described in this article.
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#144If COVID-19 didn’t move the needle on how dependent we are on foreign countries to do our scut work.
I highly doubt the precipice of war will change anything. We are a species that will optimize for the shortest path. Cutting corners along the way. When it blows up on our faces and while sitting on a pile of ashes, will ponder “wtf did we do wrong”.
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#145If COVID-19 didn’t move the needle on how dependent we are on foreign countries to do our scut work. I highly doubt the precipice of war will change anything. We are a species that will optimize for the shortest path. Cutting corners along the way. When it blows up on our faces and while sitting on a pile of ashes, will ponder “wtf did we do wrong”.
> If COVID-19 didn’t move the needle on how dependent we are on foreign countries to do our scut work.
I believe the search-term you are looking for is "Friendshoring".
"Some companies and governments pursue friendshoring as a way to continue accessing international markets and supply chains while reducing certain geopolitical risks... Bonnie Glick first used the term "allied shoring" at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, while serving as the deputy administrator of the United States Agency for International Development... The new U.S. Trade Policy, including USMCA and IPEF, complies with the Friendshoring arrangement." [1]
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure I entirely agree? #1 > Or disable a hospital. The entire Ascension Healthcare system of hospitals (142 hospitals, 2600 total facilities) in on divert since 8 May because they had to switch back to paper records. Change Healthcare has lost $872M since it was attacked in February. Maybe it's more like the pandemic: seems like nothing, unless it affects you . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(healthcare_…
I find it additionally odd that the author calls this era pre war. Ukraine is certainly at war right now with a very potent cyber state. Their infrastructure seems to hold up ok. It’s not perfect but definitely not doomsday like described in this article.
Tbf their infra holds up because their infrastructure workers put their lives on the line every single day repairing it under horrible conditions of shelling, etc.
On my most recent trip there - I was amazed at how despite being routinely hit by missiles, their train systems “on time” status is better than British or even German trains.
This is only possible because their railway workers have balls of steel and go out to repair damage fast, and sometimes get hit in follow up strikes.
Same with energy workers - they go out and repair stuff during air alarms, in the immediate aftermath of strikes they perform damage control and mitigations.
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an SWE I do agree somewhat with what you say but this story is not complete. If you look at the attacks on Ukraine and the cybersecurity damage done it was fairly small in the grand scheme of things. Another important thing is that Microsoft helped them to fight back as well, so it was not a terrible investment. Was there any quantifiable risk assessment done to understand the potential damages if Russians carried…
> As an SWE I do agree somewhat with what you say but this story is not complete. If you look at the attacks on Ukraine and the cybersecurity damage done it was fairly small in the grand scheme of things. It's worth mentioning that the most expensive and extensive malware attack in history was caused by one of such Russian cyberattacks hitting systems which (at the time) they weren't intended to. Causing severe shipp…
Why don't we see these attacks though? I know they're worryingly practical and the West certainly has enough enemies (especially from extremist groups who don't have the same peace keeping concerns as a nation state), and yet we don't see groups just sabotaging critical infrastructure and businesses left and right. Is it really just difficulty/a lack of skill?
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure I entirely agree? #1 > Or disable a hospital. The entire Ascension Healthcare system of hospitals (142 hospitals, 2600 total facilities) in on divert since 8 May because they had to switch back to paper records. Change Healthcare has lost $872M since it was attacked in February. Maybe it's more like the pandemic: seems like nothing, unless it affects you . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_(healthcare_…
> but there are a lot of disasters where the cables are fine We are talking about war-like situations, and where one state actor has incentive to cause maximum harm to another. Exposing your infrastructure like this is unlike damage that can come from natural disaster. For example, disrupting the communications exactly before the attack. Similar issues (though through lower tech hacking) happened in 7th of October du…
What was the lower tech stuff on Oct 7?
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Picking on Ukraine, the US not having a policy of signing new people up to the anti-Russia military alliance every few years [0] seems like low hanging fruit. Or not working to integrate their intelligence with the CIA [1] for the last decade. I don't speak German but apparently Merkle said that we weren't negotiating in good faith to keep the peace either [2]. These are the sort of thing I suspect Russia would see a…
It is not an anti-Russia alliance, we Romania enter NATO to survive teh eventual Ruzzian invasion, as you can see from Ukraine war our politicians, even the communist regime was sure that a Ruzzian invasion is unavoidable (yeah, makes your mind segfault when you find out that communist Romania had better relations with USA and was preparing to resist a USSR invasion). You need to talk with Russians to understend thei…
I've never heard a single bad word about Romania or its people, and I definitely have a lot more ties to Russia than you do. No idea where you read shit like this, but you should probably avoid those places from now on to keep your sanity.
Re: Cyber Security: A pre-war reality check
#150> I know it sounds devastating, but you have to get used to the fact that a new era has begun. The pre-war era. It is madness that we're in a position where this can be baldly stated by a PM and there has been no "huh?" moment when people stop and assess how badly the broader West's military, economic and diplomatic efforts have failed over the last 30 odd years. Possibly longer. I wasn't expecting to see land wars i…
I mean you're either in a war period or a pre-war period ... Although yeah the whole propping up non-democracies because they have cheap labor or cheap materials for decades does seem to have been a poor decision in the long run.
"You" are still doing it, your Western governments looked the other way at killing of more than 300+ pro-democracy protesters by our government forces at the beginning of 2022 because it was convenient for them to do so. Half of worldwide supply of uranium fuel and all that. These things will be remembered for decades.