Crossroads Blog | Institute National Security and Counterterrorism

Current Affairs, Iran, Stuxnet, technology

Cyber Roundup (12/26): NSA targets domestic systems, Mutants, Stuxnet’s back, and more . . .

David Axe, for Wired, with an extremely interesting article titled This Scientist Wants Tomorrow’s Troops to Be Mutant-Powered.  The article touches upon Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) and the idea of neuro-enhancements, which I think will eventually become a “cyber issue” to the extent that such technology will be exploited like computers.  The article focuses more on bio-modifications, which are beyond the scope of this blog, but nonetheless interesting.  Disturbingly, Axe suggests that US adversaries are moving ahead on this while the US military stands back.  There’s a discussion on bio red-teaming towards the end of the article that gives me chills.

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BBC News reports that Iranian authorities fended off a cyberattack on an electric supply company.  Strangely, the Iranians claim that it was our favorite worm, Stuxnet, that did the targeting.  Of course, the Iranians accused the US and Israel.  I find it unlikely we would use the same virus twice.

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Declan McCullagh, for CNet, with the following:

Newly released files show a secret National Security Agency program [(Perfect Citizen)] is targeting the computerized systems that control utilities to discover security vulnerabilities, which can be used to defend the United States or disrupt the infrastructure of other nations.

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I don’t know how many of you are or aren’t into Tom Clancy, but Harry Levins reviewed his most recent work, Threat Vector, for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  The book apparently has a heavy cyber element.  I love this quote from Threat Vector:

Napoleon is credited with saying an army marches on its stomach. But that was in Napoleon’s time.  Now it was clear to everyone that the U.S. military marched on its bandwidth, and at the moment it seemed it could do little more than stand at parade rest.

Via Wikimedia

Via Wikimedia

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