Deconstructing the Cyber-Drivel
Yet another cyber war article in the national gossip rag which is the Sydney Morning Herald this morning.
I haven’t worked out if this one is supposed to be a movie plot or just the thought processes of a six year old, but it goes like this; Stuxnet is designed to infect real world SCADA systems - it is very dangerous - it might have been written by a nation state - therefore a cyber war has broken out. I know. It’s shallow, but I did warn you it reads like a six year old wrote it.
The usual heap of alarmist drivel abounds:
Mystery computer worm part of a global cyber war.
Um, yeah .. sure it is. (major fruit cake warning right there).
“companies surveyed were convinced the volume and virulence of the attacks will escalate…”
So people are tired or cynical enough to assume things will get worse. Reasons for depression in life are numerous, but I suppose if you’re feeling jaded blaming everything on CO2 then cyber war may have it’s fashion season.
“Attacks on critical infrastructure are real, and more and more companies believed they are politically motivated…”
There are two major problems with this statement. First, there are ten years of records showing no significant damage to real world infrastructure anywhere in the world due to viruses, malware or hacking. Second, what companies believe doesn’t make it true.
“Even for a cyber attack, the Stuxnet worm is unusually toxic…
Clever line. Did you see how a worm, once called a virus, is renamed as a “cyber attack”. Suddenly a whole history of “cyber war” appears magically from nowhere.
“Defence Department had detected up to 2400 attempted cyber attacks on government systems last year…”
Ooookay. Conjures up a picture of battalions of evil attackers doesn’t it. I feel sure they will all be dressed in black. I wonder if this revelation will affect next years winter fashions? Black was so ‘in’. Will I be able to use those black jeans I bought?
But my favourite quote is this one:
Half of all companies running “critical infrastructure” systems worldwide say they have sustained politically motivated attacks.
So we are led to believe that some (unnamed) party has contacted all the companies in the world who run ‘critical’ infrastructure. Who exactly decided what qualified as ‘critical’ is not revealed. Also, who paid for these thousands of companies to be tracked down and contacted is not revealed. Best of all, these contacted companies were able to magically climb into the minds and hearts of malicious programmers and declare their exact motivations. Oops, I didn’t mean programmers, I meant “cyber attackers”.
I watched the new Tom Crusie, Cameron Diaz movie, Knight & Day in the weekend. I don’t know what the critics said, but I liked it. Full of impossible action but doesn’t take itself too seriously and lots of silly moments. Near the start of the movie, Tom Cruise’s character is warning Cameron Diaz’s character about the people after him. He says something like ‘… there are key words you need to be aware of. Words like “stablise”, “secure” and “safe”. If they use these words, especially if they repeat them, it means they are going to kill you.’
There is NO CYBER WAR people. Just the same old, same old virus story of the last ten years - but with new clothes on. Don’t be fooled into letting the government put a camera in your home to make you “safe”.
Link to Sydney Morning Movie Plot here.
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