Cybercrime: A tightening web of threats and attacks
The crippling of a major oil pipeline by hackers represents “a new extreme” in the global ransomware epidemic, said Andy Greenberg in Wired.com. Last week, Colonial Pipeline, which supplies nearly half the fuel consumed on the East Coast, announced that hackers had attacked its internal computer network, and “shut down parts of the pipeline’s operations to contain the threat.” Though the attack does not appear to have reached key control systems for the 5,500-mile conduit running from Texas to New Jersey, it is still “one of the largest disruptions of American critical infrastructure by hackers in history.” The Russian cybercrime group known as DarkSide claimed responsibility, said Eamon Javers in CNBC.com. The DarkSide hackers are known for “double extortion,” simultaneously locking up networks and threatening to leak stolen data unless a ransom is paid. The group claims it is “apolitical,” but its activity reflects a pattern of Russia taking an indulgent approach to cybercrime targeting the West.
Nation states can easily hide behind criminal groups in this new form of cyberwarfare, said Danny Palmer in ZDNet.com. Attackers can simply use “modified variants of ransomware commonly used by cybercriminals,” keeping the real motives behind an attack hidden. One state that barely bothers to conceal its cybercrime ambitions is North Korea, said Ed Caesar in
The New Yorker. In a country where “few families own computers,” North Korea has trained cybercriminal talent “the way Olympians were once cultivated in the former Soviet bloc,” placing the most promising pupils in specialized schools. It’s estimated that 7,000 North Koreans now work in the country’s “hacker army.” Some of their operations involve months of planning and sophisticated “social engineering.” For one attack in Chile, a “Spanish-speaking actor” was hired to impersonate a real banking executive to gain access to the company’s network.
These “attacks are getting nastier,” said Paul Sisson in The San Diego Union-Tribune. Hackers last week “paralyzed the digital resources” at Scripps Health. Survivors of the smuggling boat that capsized off Point Loma could not be sent to the closest trauma center, Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, because its computer systems were down. We can ill afford another wake-up call, said Timothy O’Brien in Bloomberg.com. The vulnerability, in particular, of our energy infrastructure “is one of the top-drawer issues of the 21st century.” Companies and the government have to start acting now to insulate our networks. Part of that is “being transparent” after attacks, rather than holding on to information out of embarrassment or competitiveness. That only makes it “harder to prepare for and surmount the next one.”