Russia's Rise To Cyberwar Superpower (dailydot.com)

"The Russians are top notch," says Chris Finan, an ex-director at DARPA for cyberwar research, now a CEO at security firm Manifold Technology, and a former director of cybersecurity legislation in the Obama administration. "They are some of the best in the world... " Slashdot reader blottsie quotes an article which argues the DNC hack "may simply be the icing on the cyberwar cake": In a flurry of action over the last decade, Russia has established itself as one of the world's great and most active cyber powers. The focus this week is on the leak of nearly 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee... The evidence -- plainly not definitive but clearly substantial -- has found support among a wide range of security professionals. The Russian link is further supported by U.S. intelligence officials, who reportedly have "high confidence" that Russia is behind the attack...

Beyond the forensic evidence that points to Russia, however, is the specter of President Vladimir Putin. Feeling encircled by the West and its expanding NATO alliance, the Kremlin's expected modus operandi is to strike across borders with cyberwar and other means to send strong messages to other nations that are a real or perceived threat.
The article notes the massive denial of service attack against Estonia in 2007 and the "historic and precedent-setting" cyberattacks during the Russian-Georgian War. "Hackers took out Georgian news and government websites exactly in locales where the Russian military attacked, cutting out a key communication mode between the Georgian state and citizens directly in the path of the fight."

Comments

Re:Not China, because China gave at the offiice

[fustakrakich]

You don't "blame" the Russians for being "top notch". They aren't. They just have a lot of people working at it, and we are just sloppy in the security department, or pretending to be so to create kind of an attractive honeypot. This isn't just another "Red Scare". We are dealing with real sociopaths, and we kinda have to be one to know one. This is today's problem, and solution. And I have to admit, the democrats are better at the game. At least they know the art of subtlety when facing the public. The republicans are laying all their cards on the table face up. But they are both horrible in containment of the war to the war zone.

Is it still safe to use Kaspersky products?

And this is why we should cripple encryption

[Nyder]

God, I love politics. On one hand we got the FBI and cronies wanting encryption weaken to make their job easier, and on the other hand, we got a big cyber threat from Russia/China.

Which one is it you fuckers?

Putin knows exactly what he is doing

[quax]

And what most people in the West don't realize is that the vast majority of Russians side with him on this.

Russia has been invaded over and over again. It informs the national mindset, and fundamentally ingrains the urge to have a strong Russian military, and to retain bordering nations as neutral buffer states.

Reagan would be proud of his old party

[Uberbah]

Dems are shown to be a bunch of corrupt elitist assholes - and they deflect from that by blaming Russia with the same gravely serious tones they used to tell you about Saddam's WMD's.