Bear prints found on Georgian cyber-attacks Security researchers claim to have uncovered evidence pointing to a link between Russian state-run businesses and cyber-attacks against Georgia. Denial of service attacks against Georgian web-sites started a day before Georgian and Russian military units began fighting over the disputed region of South Ossetia. SecureWorks …
"We know that the Russian government controls those servers theoretically, if they have not been 'pwned' by somebody else," Jackson told eWeek
pwned? Are you serious? I think fifteen-year-olds sound like fools when they use that term, much less an adult, let alone in a professional interview.
"Compared to the May 2007 Estonian attacks, these are more intense but have lasted (so far) for less time. This could be due to a number of factors, including more sizeable botnets with more bandwidth, better bandwidth at the victims, changes in our observations, or other factors,"
Like, the telephone exchanges and router infrastructure being bombed?
I wish some net speak terms would die. However, more importantly Georgia is getting beat up by Russia not only in the virtual world, but in the real world as well. Their military is unable to handle the task and the world refuses to help physically.
But cyberattacks will be the new norm in first strikes of war. It's a cheap and personnel friendly way of disrupting enemy communications since your troops will not be shot at.
But speaking as a former grunt myself... This is a tool of zero military value.
Granted, you can use it as a propaganda tool, and prevent the spread of what is happening to the world, perhaps delay international involvement. All that's very well and good.
But it doesn't disrupt any real enemy military communications. Staff pukes might e-mail powerpoint presentations around the world, but real tactical commo happens on completely seperate networks that this just isn't going to touch. Not only will real communication still happen, but with some of the TACLAN technology out there nowadays, there's a pretty good chance that powerpoint will ding in the commanders inbox as well.
But pretending this sort of stuff actually makes any sort of real tactical difference makes geeks feel good, and lets people write stories about "Cyberwarriors" or Chair Force CyberCommands.
"Denial of service attacks against Georgian web-sites started a day before Georgian and Russian military units began fighting over the disputed region of South Ossetia."
As noted by Dave Bell, the timing is odd ... I was under the impression that Georgia "invaded" South Ossetia BEFORE Russian planes and troops moved in. Wrong? If not, then why would cyberattacks begin BEFORE the Georgian military struck?
The sole reason for the madness was to ensure that the polish public opinion is no longer 60%+ against American missiles. Scary Russian Bear moving around. Oh my god... Run for cover!!!
And behold, American missiles which everybody had doubts about are now very welcome.
All of this at the cost of a corrupt muppet on the CIA payroll ordering the murder 1500 civilians by artillery fire and sacrificing most of his own army. Hey, but what are 1500 civilians and a few tanks between good friends? And after all, what are muppets for, but to take orders?
Cyber attacks won't disrupt military communications, but without civilian backing a military's supply lines will quickly dwindle. Screwing up civilian communications would be invaluable in a drawn out war (though it didn't turn out that way), and is also a low impact way of getting civilians to rally against fighting. It's easy, politically, to keep troops in the thick of things forever if there are no consequences to anyone not in uniform on your side.
Also, as far as the timing goes, there must have been a delay between Georgia invading South Ossetia and Russia mobilizing, if Russia didn't actually have troops in the region (which I don't think they did.) the cyber attacks probably started early because the military wasn't ready yet.
Oh no , the coin of forty sides like the forty thieves in the night , has arrived with a bang so as to speak or how soon we forget large networks have some systems running in game mode with zero firewalls (or just what the bot nets behind proxy servers need !) !
Choices , or just more of the blame game of the propaganda of shame on you ?
never underestimate the tactical value of a good propaganda or "hearts and minds" campaign. Look how well it's worked to keep the US Navy from training in Active Sonar, and how much damage it has done to American troops in Iraq from fake accusations of Haditha. Or the KGB-sponsored "Anti War Movement" that demoralized the nation even decades after Vietnam.
Trashed communications hurts the people, and in a democratic nation or one still listens to it's people, cyberattacks make the people less interested in longer fights, more believing that they will lose, helping destroy their fighting spirit-which is a bad thing for the military that is supported and beholden to the people.
The comments on the BBCs HYS from Russains to see the effect of this kind of attacke. These people genuinly beleave that what they are being told is real, and backing it up with infomation from Georgan websites. Tales of Georga invading Russia, and claiming that it was an unprovoked attack etc etc.
As for "pwned", whats next, the new US cyber war teams being call things like:
USAF 1st L33t infantry
Motto: We pwn the n00bs
Time for a geography/history lesson. Georgia never "invaded" south Ossetia. In fact, south Ossetia has been part of Georgia from the get-go (i.e. since when the USSR split).
To make matters more complicated, Russia has not "invaded" south Ossetia (a part of Georgia, remember?) either. Russian forces are stationed there as -get this- peacekeepers under a UN mandate. They (kind of) overstepped the boundaries of their mandate when they got out of south Ossetia and began spilling into the rest of Georgia, in response to an ill-conceived attempt to oust them by the Georgians.
I'm still waiting for a UN/Security Council position on the issue - but none seems forthcoming, so probably as far as they're concerned, nothing of note happened.
I don't claim to be an expert on military communications but all the comments that cyber attacks will have zero impact on military communications may be a little off
I realise that in the US and several other countries there are extensive networks for military use, in fact as far as I am aware the US Navy has the largest network in the world outside the internet
However, I remember examples such as Bosnia where UK soldiers resorted to mobile phones as their expensive radio network didn't work add to that the fact that Georgia's army isn't exactly extensive and are you SURE that entensive DDOS attacks wouldn't have any strategic value at least in the very short term at the beginning of a conflict?
Perhaps such an attack would have little impact on a large military force using seperate comms but is this the case with all armies?
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