Quick survey of recent cyber news . . .
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On 9/25, Yeganeh Torbati reported for Reuters on an interesting comment from a Revolutionary Guard deputy commander. The article quoted said deputy commander as saying: “We have armed ourselves with new tools, because a cyber war is more dangerous than a physical war.”
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PCMag’s Damon Poeter covered a new hacking group: the Arab Electronic Army. The group has apparently been attacking Western websites in retaliation for the Innocence of Muslims video. For some reason, they have also targeted a bunch of Brazilian websites.
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Reuter’s Joseph Menn reported on the Obama administration’s cybersecurity EO. There really wasn’t any new information, but a good rehash of what it would look like. The article contained the following quote from Sen. Lieberman:
The Department of Homeland Security has clear authority, if directed by you, to conduct risk assessments of critical infrastructure, identify those systems or assets that are most vulnerable to cyber attack and issue voluntary standards for those critical systems or assets to maintain adequate cybersecurity . . .
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Nextgov’s Joseph Marks on the concept of a Twitter mercenary. Twitter mercs are just pro-government bloggers paid by the regime to “tout the official point of view, discredit opposition activists, or disseminate false information” via Twitter. Apparently Bahrain is the worst offender, “employ[ing] hundreds of ‘trolls’ whose responsibility is to . . . attack the credibility of those who post information that reflects poorly on the government.”
Getting paid to troll? And here I’ve been doing it for free like a sucker.
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Paul Rosenzweig wrote an interesting article for The Heritage Foundation on Sen. Rockefeller’s letter to Fortune 500 CEOs concerning his cybersecurity legislation.
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