Cyber Warfare

NikeX said:

Answer: Any attack on Europe would have to be viewed through the prism of Islam. And I cannot understand Islam and its goals of converting non-believers to Islam via the sword. But Islam drives all decisions for Iran and cannot be understood by a non-Islamic person.
Are the Iranians pragmatic? I cannot say.

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It's quite clear that you don't understand Islam. Neither do I, I'm an atheist.
The Qu'ran is opposed to forced conversion, unlike Christianity ( remember the conversion of the Saxons by Charlemagne, when many who resisted were killed, some after being baptized ) or apparently Buddhism ( most Tibetans were converted by their King at the same time Charlemagne was evangelising among the Saxons ).
Is the fact that you don't understand people enough reason to think they're idiots?
Iran has not attacked any country since 1979, unlike the US and Israel and many other Western countries. They are accused of terrorism, but the only thing that can be proved "against" them is their support for Hezbollah and Hamas. It sees these movement as defending themselves and their people against the aggressor state Israel. You might disagree but this is a defensible point of view.
Iran is enriching uranium it says for peaceful purposes and warlike intent has not been proved against them. But ending enrichment and giving in to blackmail might encourage the blackmailers. At the same time it says developing nuclear weapons is haram and that too is a reasonable point of view. Beside it sees that Iraq was able to remove the occupation forces and it expects Afghanistan also to be successful.
Iran is arming itself to deter aggressors and it keeps to the rules. Both are duties of a state. So where do you see Iran being unreasonable

^^^ We, in the non-islamic world, need to worry more about the Wahibis. These are the true Islamic Nutjobs who want to proliferate islam to the 4 corners of the globe whether you like it or not. Just so happens they are backed by the Saudis ( esp. their Royal family). They use soft power e.g. supplying their form of islamic teaching in text books for kids as well as direct funding of terrorism. Know your enemy...because the US Gov sure doesn't.

Back to the CyberWarfare topic:

It was reported today that upon examining the Flame malware

- At least four programmers developed code for the servers and left their nicknames in the source code.

- One of the servers communicated with more than 5,000 victim machines during just a one-week period last May, suggesting the total victims exceed 10,000.

-The infections didn’t occur at once, but focused on different groups of targets in various countries at different times; one server focused primarily on targets in Iran and Sudan.

-The attackers stole massive amounts of data – at least 5.5 gigabytes of stolen data inadvertently left behind on one of the servers was collected in one week.

-The four pieces of malware used different custom protocols to communicate with the servers.

-The attackers used a number of means to secure their operation as well as the data they stole – although they left behind gigabytes of purloined data, it was encrypted using a public key stored in a database on the servers and an unknown private key, preventing the researchers and anyone else without the private key from reading it.

-The attackers, perhaps suspecting that their operation was about to be uncovered last May, attempted a cleanup operation to wipe the Flame malware from infected machines.

It must be clear to many people working in IT that it is taking an unnecessary risk to use programs and operating systems that are in widespread use. It is much better to use a less well known operating system and by preference one designed for security like OpenBSD instead of Microsoft Windows. You might then introduce your own variations to make exploitation of any mistakes you make more difficult.
A strong defense is more valuable than offensive capabilities that might be denied when you most need them.

Add to that, education for users about security issues. I for one am eager to see consumer operating systems that start to use TPM for security.

As a computer user, HUAWEI and kapersky are two second-rate companys who cannot be remembered in the historic view.

escobar said:

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See the contradiction? They make a general statement about Chinese hackers not being as good as Israeli and Russians yet why is China accused of being the biggest cyber threat? Chinese hackers accused of stealing F-35 data... Are they small potatos? Oh maybe those are the good ones. So does that mean all Israeli and Russians hackers are all great?

Recently Iran has been accused of cyber attacks to which has brought up the idea again cyber attacks are acts of war. Which begs the question what is Stuxnet? And look how Israel is sounding again the alarm bells on Iran's nuclear program. Where's Stuxnet to save the world?

Why are the US not boosting about their own cyber warfare skills? Their espionage establishment is larger than the military of many countries, they spent relatively little on humint and much on the interception of messages of their friends, their enemies and everyone else and that is already close to cyber espionage.
Also they push the use of Microsoft Windows which is notoriously leaky. And what do we think of this item I found on slashdot:

China Telco Replaces Cisco Devices Over Security Concerns
Posted by timothy on Friday October 26, @08:02PM
from the tit-for-tat-for-tit-etc dept.

hackingbear writes
"China Unicom, the country's second largest telecom operator, has replaced Cisco Systems routers in one of the country's most important backbone networks, citing security reasons [due to bugs and vulnerability.) The move came after a congressional report branded Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. and ZTE Corp. security threats in the United States, citing bugs and vulnerability (rather than actual evidence of spying.) Surprising to us, up to now, Cisco occupies a large market share in China. It accounts for over a 70 percent share of China Telecom's 163 backbone network and over an 80 percent share of China Unicom's 169 backbone network. Let's wait to see who's the winner in this trade war disguised as national security."

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Also from /.:

Iran's High Tech Copycat War Against the West: Drones and Cyberwar
Posted by Soulskill on Friday October 26, @02:25PM
from the sue-them-for-copyright-infringment dept.

An anonymous reader writes
"Iran and its nuclear program seem to be getting all the headlines. Yet, Iran has found a way to respond to western cyber attacks such as Stuxnet, drone surveillance and targeted assassinations; they've decided to respond in kind. Iran has launched its own cyber attacks on U.S. banks via denial-of-service attacks. Iranian drones recently were used to spy on Israeli nuclear facilities. Cyberweapons were also used against Saudi oil facilities. The goal: to make sure the west, specifically the United States, knows that Iran does have the tools to strike back. While Iran does not have a world-class military like the United States, it does have the capabilities to cause damage if it wants to. With Iran taking to cyberspace and drones, it shows such technology is not just under the control of the U.S. Iran has been careful, though, not to escalate the conflict. The risk: what if the plan backfires and goes beyond its intended scope?"

Read the 149 comments

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delft said:

Why are the US not boosting about their own cyber warfare skills? Their espionage establishment is larger than the military of many countries, they spent relatively little on humint and much on the interception of messages of their friends, their enemies and everyone else and that is already close to cyber espionage.
Also they push the use of Microsoft Windows which is notoriously leaky. And what do we think of this item I found on slashdot:

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Why boast? Why would be gained by bragging? Why give potential enemies any information?