Crossroads Blog | Institute National Security and Counterterrorism

Current Affairs, cyber attack, Stuxnet, Television

Cyber Roundup (6/21): Iran stops new massive cyberattack, U.S./Israel behind Flame, U.S. and China in cyberspace, CNBC to run Chinese cyberespionage program, and what is America’s cyber policy?

Whew, quite a hectic few weeks with regard to cyber news . . .

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Reuters reports that Iran says it has detected and stopped a major cyberattack against its nuclear program.  The article noted that it was unclear whether the Iranians were referring to Flame or some new attack.

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In what should probably suprise no one, it appears that Israel and the U.S. were behind the Flame malware.  This, according to Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller, and Julie Tate of the Washington Post.

Don't forget that bombshell NYT's story about how the U.S. and Israel were also behind Stuxnet.

So here's my question . . . when will it get leaked that the U.S. and Israel were also behind Conficker, Duqu, and the Tilded platform?  For those that forgot, cybersecurity researchers found a "platform" called Tilded that allows for a sort of plug and play action that quickly creates new cyberweapons.  More importantly, Kaspersky Labs had previously discovered that Stuxnet and Duqu "seek each other out" on infected computers.  While certainly not conclusive, you can see where I'm going with this . . . if the U.S./Israel created Stuxnet, and Stuxnet was created off the Tilded platform, and Duqu attempts to communicate with Stuxnet . . . well, yeah.

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An interesting peice from the Washington Post's editorial board calls for a clarification on America's cyberwar policy and a more open debate on the doctrine behind offensive cyberweapons.

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Adam Segal had a fantastic blog post for the Council on Foreign Relations on the contours of the U.S.-Chinese cyber relationship.  A very interesting look at how the Chinese viewed the Stuxnet news and their push for the International Code of Conduct for Information Security. 

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This one should be interesting . . . CNBC is running a half hour special on Chinese cyber-espionage.  Tune in July 9th at 9pm.

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