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Putin’s cyber blind spot
A common question about the lacklustre Russian cyberwar so far is, why hasn’t Putin unleashed the ransomware gangs? Why isn’t there a massive wave of ransomware across Europe and America? There are two related issues here that need to be addressed on Putin and ransomware: (1) why would he? (2) why hasn’t he? This post… Read more
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French election thoughts
I’ve had time only to make a brief outline of my thoughts on a Russia intervention in the French election. I think it is more likely than not. I apologise for the extremely sparse nature of this post. I want to get something posted and simply don’t have the time to arrange my thoughts and… Read more
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I can’t believe its not cyberwar
Russian cyber attack on UA electrical grid attack Latest update on the cyberwar that “is not taking place.” Russia has been attacking the Ukrainian power grid, just like they were supposed to based on the preconceived models everyone had. So that’s good for the pundits, I guess. They can come out from under their rocks… Read more
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KGB Fail Belarus Rail, the tale.
Deception in Belarus Partisan Operations On March 25th the Belarus railway system was sabotaged (again) as part of the ongoing campaign by partisans to hamper Putins war effort. These attacks have been ongoing since at least earlier this year, when the Cyber Partisans (BCP) hacked the railway’s network and began trashing it. First in a… Read more
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Cyber in the raw
Russia’s opening cyber salvo was clearly tied to their war planning. They seem to have used wipers to go after gov, mil and comms systems to degrade Ukraine’s defense capacity. And the attack on KA-SAT was related to Ukrainian military capacity as well. These sorts of attacks are very much in line with the traditional… Read more
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Pharaoh is a total ass
This is extremely off topic, but I feel I have to put it somewhere. Besides cyber, war history, war studies, and fonts, one of my interests is Bronze Age history (also pre-history, but thats for later.) I was reading about some correspondence between Pharaoh and the Hittite king Hattusili. There is this kinda famous exchange… Read more
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Ukraine my heart, cyber just for show?
The multiple coordinated attacks on Ukrainian government cyber infrastructure is a very interesting development in the field of cyber warfare. This may be the first public example of multiple types of attacks, not directly linked via the same penetration, being used in coordination to attempt an effects based operation. The website defacements were used to… Read more
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cyber is what threat actors make of it
A war of ideas where you have the wrong starting assumptions is going to be a costly war. — thaddeus e. grugq (@thegrugq) November 18, 2021 Currently I’m reading “War from the ground up” which is about a lot of things, but one concept is that war is not a universal interpretive device on its… Read more
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Iran’s Lame Cyber Aspirations Revealed
A brief discussion of this report from Sky News on some Iranian cyber research reports. https://news.sky.com/story/irans-secret-cyber-files-on-how-cargo-ships-and-petrol-stations-could-be-attacked-12364871 This reports are clearly first stage fact-finding and brainstorming, the very earliest stage of capability development. They reveal only initial cursory preliminary analysis of potential vulnerabilities to exploit for cyber effects operations. Comprehensive actual hands-on testing of the target… Read more
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Regarding the Kaseya Attack, Some Answers
Another spectacular raid by Russian ransom where gangs prompted a series of interesting questions by Catalin. I thought it would be worthwhile to address them. Here is the thread with the questions. I have inlined them below with my responses. Some questions in regards to the Kaseya incident: -How did REvil learn of the VSA… Read more