Cyber Round Up: Iranian Cyberattacks on the Rise, UK Surveillance Bill — Sweeping Powers for Spies, The Biggest Cybersecurity Threat: The Energy Sector

Posted by user on November 6, 2015 0 Comments

Iranian Cyberattacks are on the rise (The Hill): According to a report by The Hill, Iran is increasing its cyberattacks and there is speculation that if economic sanctions against Iran are lifted they may pour even more resources into this endeavor. The cybersecurity firm Norse is expected to release the results of a study today wherein there is a 115% increase in cyberattacks originating from Iran between Jan. 2014 and Oct. 2015, according to the report. The Hill report states specifically, that Norse believes that more than 900 attacks, attributable to Iran, occurred each day. Furthermore, Norse researchers believe that both Chinese and Iranian hackers have been targeting supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems tied to critical U.S. infrastructure, according to the report. We have previously discussed the U.S. infrastructure in a number of posts, Grid Security, U.S. Grid Cyber Vulnerabilities, Nuclear Power Plants Culture of Denial. The full text of the article can be found here.

The Biggest Cybersecurity Threat: The Energy Sector (In Homeland Security): According to a report that appears In Homeland Security, a Congressional commission estimated that a large-scale could lead to 90% of the U.S. population dying from a combination of any of the following: disease, inadequate food supplies, and “general societal breakdown”. The article states that this study by Michael Krancer, Margaret Anne Hill, and Tom Duncan, appeared in The Legal Intelligencer and outlined the domino effects that would unfold if our energy infrastructure was targeted and successfully attacked. The article also states that The Wall Street Journal surveyed over 600 I.T. executives in the U.S., U.K, Germany, and France, and that of those 48% indicated that it is likely there will be a cyberattack on critical infrastructure within the next three years that will result in the loss of life. The full text of the article can be found here.

UK Surveillance Bill Triggers Alarm over Sweeping Powers for Spies (The Guardian): A recent report in The Guardian indicates that the Home Secretary, Theresa May, admitted that the UK has been performing bulk data collection on British citizens since 2001. The Guardian report indicates that May presented a 300-page draft surveillance bill that explicitly states the surveillance powers of the intelligence agencies and law enforcement. Furthermore, the report states that the bill proposes that ISPs and telecom vendors track every website visited by users for up to 12 months; and will provide that data to law enforcement and intelligence agencies without a warrant. The report states that Shadow Home Secretary, Andy Burnham, said this bill strikes the proper balance between privacy and security. While May stated that these changes were necessary to ensure that “no area of cyberspace becomes a safe haven for those who seek to harm us, to plot, poison minds and peddle hatred under the radar”, according to the report. The full report is available here.