Good reporting
John, your article--although largely a rehash of The Local's--is to be commended for sticking to the known facts and avoiding the temptation to fall into speculation and innuendo. Well done.
More than 50 Norwegian oil and energy companies have been hacked by unknown attackers, according to government security authorities. A further 250 firms have been advised by the Norwegian government that they ought to check their networks and systems for evidence of a breach, The Local reports. State-owned Statoil, Norway's …
Never mind the hacking news, I found something much better on the Local: http://www.thelocal.no/20140624/british-airways-to-show-norways-slow-tv.
This might finally get me to use the in-flight entertainment thing (and to fly BA).
Nasjonal is basically national with a proper spelling, and since we don't split our words into bits and pieces sikkerhetsmyndighet is put together of sikkerhet, which is not far off from security, and myndighet. It is from German mundich and...why do I bother, you lot couldn't even pronounce Eyjafjallajökull when the volcano erupted underneath it.
I'd hope you'd think first, check facts - something El Reg *did not do* - and then decide.
96% of the revenue is tucked away and not used. By law the Greedy Buggers(tm) don't get to use more than 4%. So we avoid the slash-and-burn of "conservatives" with grand ideas of statues and 8-lane motorways.
And that other sort which people think exists, who want to use cash on humans. Don't worry. We have none of those either.
Actually the Norwegian Oil & Gas industry is a very good reason to vote for independance. Unlike Westminster they have not mismanaged the industry for the last 10 years and currently have record growth despite much higher taxes. In contrast the UKCS has been mismanaged by successive governments changing the tax regime every five minutes making long term planning impossible. A record low of wells were drilled in the last two years and oil companies are exiting the UK as fast as possible, mostly to concentrate on their Norwegian assets.
Infrastructure attacks on state resources cannot be tolerated, Internet or not.
It is interesting to witness the rise in frequency of this kind of thing. A DDOS on Twitter, or Netflick, annoying as it may be to the users of those services, is not a national security issue. An attack on critical infrastructure is, and governments have a tendency to not put up with that kind of nonsense.
I am almost hoping that this kind of attack will continue in order for critical infrastructure to get its ducks in a row and get the hell off the Internet. The Internet offers near-anonymity in this kind of attack, that anonymity disappears as soon as you have to dial a specific number to log on. Not to mention that DDOS is just not possible anymore, so that's two birds with one stone.
So go on being nuisances, you stupid script kiddies and botlords. In the end, you'll be doing us all a service by forcing our governments to make things more secure.