So Many Predictions Of Asian Cyberwar
from the proof-anyone? dept
Last month, we were a bit skeptical about reports that North Korea had been training an army of hackers to launch a cyberwar on South Korea. Now, similar reports are coming out that China is planning a cyberwar against Taiwan. While it’s quite likely that both North Korea and China would like to do such things, nothing has actually happened in either case. For the past few years, we keep hearing stories about cybersecurity threats to governments, but there has been little, if any evidence, of any serious attacks, rather than a few defacements. That isn’t to say that it couldn’t happen — but it’s getting tougher to believe that there’s a real threat when we keep hearing about threats, but never see anything happen. It also makes you wonder how much damage these cyberwars could really do. They certainly could be quite a nuisance, but the overall economic impact on a nation could be questioned.
Comments on “So Many Predictions Of Asian Cyberwar”
Extremely Dangerous
Consider: physically destroying or damaging Wall Street or the NYSE would be very difficult. It would take a good deal of coordination and require absolute surprise. What is a small team of high intelligent, determined attackers decided they wanted to attack Wall Street, or in this case a Taiwanese stock exchange, or say the S. Korean government. These attackers however are hackers. Yes, there are redundant systems. But say they crashed a major distribution center leading to one of these places. Internet, email, phones, even electricity could be disrupted. All it would take is a small whole somewhere in a massive system. A physical attack needs many, many, glaring holes in physical security.
The potential for economic impact is huge.
Threats we never see
We the general public never hear about Russian nuclear submarines loaded with nuclear missiles hanging around near our coastline. Only a few navy officers and some higher-ups know about it. We never hear about successful infiltration and arrest of terrorist groups, if the informants or undercover agents are still operating. We never hear about the USA and Russia hiding suitcase nuclear bombs in each other’s cities, as a last line of defense in the event of nuclear war. We did have them, American underground bunkers hidden throughout Europe with Soviet uniforms and nuclear weapons. Nor do we hear about a lot of bombing incidents that happen all over the country every week, since law enforcement often doesn’t want the trouble of publicizing it, or copycats getting ideas. We never see the trillions of neutrinos or other cosmic particles passing through our bodies, which have the potential to damage DNA and trigger cancer. We never hear about airplanes that came close to crashing into your house.