| Russian Digital warfare |
|
|
|
| Monday, 27 November 2006 | ||||
|
In spite of the fact that cyber war is fought on a digital ground that links places at the edges of Earth, there are some regions in the world where the action of cyber criminals and “ cyber fighters” is particularly worth noticing: one of these areas is the endless region that links Europe to Asia and includes Russia, Ukraine, Kirghizstan and Kazakhstan. Last week , two episodes were highlighted by main specialized magazines, showing us a sample of which weapons are in use and what they are capable of. In Kirghizstan, a DDos attack provoked the interruption of the Internet service for over 400.000 users. The attack, that was launched from abroad, seems to have been planned by the local secret police in an attempt to stop pro-democracy groups’ propaganda that are actively using the web as an instrument to spread their political vision and to carry on their initiatives aimed to get “honest elections” in Kirghizstan. If this can be considered an unique episode, the situation set up by Russian Cyber Criminals is definitely more difficult to face, indeed last few week, international observatories all around the globe registered an impressive increase in spam coming from Russia (+ 67% since August). This incredibly high quantity of spam (that is mainly composed by emails advertising low price offerings or stocks) has been produced by a botnet of about 73.000 computers jeopardised by software that enables the attacker to get the control over such infected computers and use them for sending spam. The involved PCs were mainly located in the USA, but the attack hit computers in over 166 countries. What is particularly noticeable is that the botnet was conceived in order to prevent any intrusion by other botnet software from other cyber criminals, indeed at present a real war is taking place not only between attackers and “unaware” users, but also between gangs of cyber criminals which are fighting for the control over PCs with fast internet connection. In this case, the word “war” is particularly suitable, because the schemes and tactics used by the attackers were planned according to a sort of “military vision”. Government itself realized the gravity of this situation and officially declared that a series of countermeasure had already been started , conveying no tolerance for cyber crimes. The possibility, suggested by unofficial sources, that Russian government could be dealing with some group of attackers in order to get their Know how, hasn't been proved yet.
Powered by a Zone-H(ified) version of AkoComment 3.0! DISCLAIMER: Forum postings are the opinion of the posting author alone, and should not be taken as the opinion of Zone-h. The author is entirely and solely responsible for all content that he/she uploads, posts, or otherwise transmits via the website. Zone-h is not responsible for such content. However, Zone-h shall have the right, but not the obligation, to delete, move, or edit any content that violates this agreement or is otherwise objectionable as determined by Zone-h in its sole discretion and without notice. |
||||
We are witnessing every day what cyber war is : a borderless conflict with no geographic or time distinctions that involves a growing number of people both among activists and unaware victims.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
