Russian Web Security Genius Warns of Global Cyber War With ‘Catastrophic Consequences’
- Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:19am by
Buck Sexton
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A cyber terrorist attack with “catastrophic consequences” could be imminent as the world is in a state of continuous digital conflict every day.
That’s the prediction of Eugene Kaspersky, the Russian math genius and global security expert, who spoke to reporters outside the London Cyber Conference yesterday.
The biggest threat to nations around the world in Kaspersky’s eyes is that a terrorist group can ally with or buy off skilled hackers and then launch a crippling cyber attack against a critical infrastructure. Responding to such an attack would be nearly impossible to prevent and the current defensive response would likely by inadequate.
A cyber terrorist cell could– with or without state support– cause massive damage to a country. If the attacked country responds with a conventional military response, an all out war could result. One group, or even one man could conceivably cripple a country or push it into war using nothing more than the internet.
“I don’t want to speak about it. I don’t even want to think about it,” Kaspersky told Sky News, “but we are close, very close, to cyber terrorism. Perhaps already the criminals have sold their skills to the terrorists . And then…oh, God.”
In Kaspersky’s view, cyber terrorism would be a logical addition to the panoply of threats already out there on the web, including cyber-espionage, cyber-crime, and hacktivism (cyber-activism).
Kaspersky wasn’t alone in his views of the growing threat of major cyber conflict. British Prime Minister David Cameron highlighted British concerns over cyber threats at the conference, and spoke frankly about the digital-era battles constantly underway:
“Every day we see attempts on an industrial scale to steal government secrets – information of interest to nation states, not just commercial organizations. Highly sophisticated techniques are being employed … These are attacks on our national interest. They are unacceptable. We will respond to them as robustly as we do any other national security threat.”
Cameron has made cyber defense a national priority, adding 650 million pounds to the budget specifically to combat cyber threats.
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Comments (74)
Jus-sayin
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:27pmDoes anyone else think Kaspersky may be advertising his wares?
Report Post »Twobyfour
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:38pmMaybe, though indirectly.
Report Post »V-MAN MACE
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 4:11pmHow close are we to cyberterrorism?
The Feds ARE cyberterrorists.
That close. We’re virtually sleeping with the enemy.
Report Post »clearwaterpro
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 5:00pmDoes it matter, if it’s true?
Report Post »Searchingforthelight
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:14pmAren’t bank accounts linked to computers? As far as I know everything is linked to computers.
Report Post »On the 9th doesn’t everything go down but computers? At least I‘ve heard but I don’t know for sure.
jcannon98188
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:35pmVery much so. A lot of people say nothing bad will come of this, but history would prove otherwise. Read this news story from Estonia in 2007: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6665145.stm
While Cyberterrorism and Cyberwar are very real threats, I feel like the government is going to take away our liberties in order to “combat it” instead of preparing defenses against such an attack.
Report Post »Gas137
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 5:49pmA coordinated attack would have to include the airways: TV, Radio, Short Wave. Complete shut down of information flow would make all activity local and immediate.
Report Post »filiusdracul
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 9:25pmWhy shortwave? That’s analog.
Report Post »LastAmerican
Posted on November 3, 2011 at 3:24pmwouldn’t it be nice and peaceful. Maybe people would start talking again.
Report Post »CyberEnforcer
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:03pmIgnorance can be a dangerous thing. This is a very real threat…trust me, it’s what I do. It was just a theory until stuxnet which bridged the control gap from systems to physical controls. Now that the basis for a serious threat has been created, it can be simply updated (Duqu) with new code to target other hardware or more modern hardware. Could this be used as a tool for government control? Certainly so but regardless we need to be educating ourselves on how to deal with the threats. Many of our home systems are already being controlled with command and control software…it’s just waiting on the right time to target critical infrastructure. Our military systems are probably safe but how good are they if there are no power grids to power them? Hmm…
Report Post »TiocFaidhArLa
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:02pmHahaha this author knows nothing about the internet. We have no Weapons, infrastructure or anything connected to the internet. This is all a ploy to filter our interneyt which is protected by our freedom of speech.
Report Post »Susan Harkins
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:14pmAt least you can see through the lies. More need to understand what the elite are actually doing by trying to “Scare America” into giving up more and more civil liberties. This is yet another prime example of the greatest social hijacking attempt in Human History — Global Societal Slavery by the Elites.
WELL DONE!
Report Post »Twobyfour
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:37pmTiocFaidhArLa, “The author knows nothing about internet”
Ignorance is a bliss.
Report Post »Twobyfour
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:41pmAddendum… It’s not about weapons but infrastructure. Cripple the infrastructure (water/energy delivery) and it‘s like you’ve dropped a slo-mo bomb.
Report Post »saranda
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 4:05pmTio – where it does it say anything about weapons? And infrastructure is completely connected to the net, from the simpliest things like traffic control to defense contractors.
Report Post »clearwaterpro
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 5:08pmCyberspace isn’t just the Internet. Cyber-terrorism would include disrupting power grids, taking out military communication networks, infecting networks (any network) with zombies and viruses. Cyber-terrorism could include an EMP weapon that would fry your car’s computer and everything else electronic in a city the size of New York. You guys need to take off the tin-foil hats and lose the doublespeak about conspiracies and “elites” and come back to the real world. Thanks for doing that.
Report Post »makeemstop
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 1:45pmDoesn’t seem like a likely scenario for a country such as the US, Germany, UK, China, etc. But for countries like Iran, Bangladesh, and like less technologically advanced countries – I can believe.
Report Post »PossumRoadkill
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 1:56pmMaybe you should read more about it. It is even more serious to a country like the US due to the amount of technology we employ in our everyday lives. It’s not just the internet, it’s the system networks connected to the internet that can cause serious problems. Government secrets, utility systems like the electrical and natural gas grids, manufacturing plants that use hazardous chemicals are all at risk. Think about it, what aspect of your every day modern life is not affected by something on this list? I’m in the IT field and this is as serious a threat we have today as anything.
Report Post »Susan Harkins
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:00pmRussian Web Security Genius Warns…
Yea, I bet. Ok Mr. Russian Web Security ‘Genius’…let me wipe out your “hair-pulling” apocolypse prophecy by short-circuiting the HD game plan you REALLY follow here.
;;;Turning to the Audience while Pointing at the “Russian Genius who pulls his hair, and educating the audience;;;
This man is an absolute control-seeking fraud, ladies and gentleman. It is important for you to understand the Hegelian Dialectic that he now employs; because it is the process by which all change is being accomplished in society today. More importantly, it is the tool that the globalists are utilizing to manipulate the minds of the average American to accept that change, where ordinarily they would refuse it.
The Hegelian Dialectic is, in short, the critical process by which the ruling elite create a problem, anticipating in advance the reaction that the population will have to the given crisis, and thus conditioning the people that a change is needed. When the population is properly conditioned, the desired agenda of the ruling elite is presented as the solution. The solution isn’t intended to solve the problem, but rather to serve as the basis for a new problem or exacerbate the existing one.
When the newly inflamed difficulty reaches the boiling point of a crisis, it becomes the foundation upon which arguments may again be made for change. Hence, the process is repeated, over and over, moving society toward whatever end the planners hav
Report Post »Susan Harkins
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:11pmEnd game: Dictatorial Control of the Internet.
The Fear-mongering is to soften you guys up to support the legislation that will give the elites that control.
Sidenote: The ‘Screaming and Frothing Russian Genius’ is merely pulling on his hair for effect.
Report Post »Twobyfour
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:29pmSusan Harkin, Kaspersky is a guy that developed security suites for several OS (windows/linux/freebsd) and the stuff works, noting fraudulent about it. One may entertain the possibility that this is a sales pitch, but note he is not saying “buy my software”.
Report Post »Jumper
Posted on November 3, 2011 at 3:32pmAre you kidding? The less developed countries, meaning less reliant on computer technology, are the safest. Sure, their systems may be more vulnerable, but if the grid in those countries went down, not a whole lot would change for the average citizen. Our systems, while less vulnerable, aren’t 100% safe from this, and if our grid goes down, we’re screwed! Almost nobody in this country grows or hunts their own food anymore, most folks barely have 3 days of food in the house, most houses don’t even have real fireplaces(the kind that burn wood), we can’t live without electricity. If our grid goes down, without any discernable cause(snowstorm, hurricane, whatever), within 96 hours or so, our streets will look like the movie Dawn of the Dead, just without the zombies. It’ll be us doing it to ourselves, looking for food, water, toilet paper, batteries, candles, basically everything, and killing anybody who is even thought to have what we think we need. When the Great Depression happened in the ‘30’s, we were still largely rural. Our parents/grandparents/great grandparents knew how to fix/build things, hunt, grow food, save everything that might have even the slightest use one day. Nearly everybody had a backyard garden and only about 40% of the meat eaten was store bought. We,90% us of us anyway, don’t have those skills anymore, if the grid fails and we have to go back to 1880′s technology, 45% of us will starve to death, 45% will kill each other and the remaining 10% will
Report Post »investlite
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:57pmBeing in the military I have seen how their networks are run. the important ones are not connected in any way shape or form to the internet. the less important ones have security that most hackers would require onsite access to get into. the ones for email and comm are connected to the internet. there is no link between all three that one could use the internet to get to. they would have to be on the inside with a TS security clearance and surrounded by people who were completely oblivious.
Could it happen, sure. is it at all probable? NO!
Report Post »Rinovirus
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:10pmI agree INVESTLITE. I think we have greater danger of an EMP. Well, let’s say that I hope that INVESTLITE is correct.
Report Post »UNIX_Techie
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 4:49pmDid you forget about the virus that has infected the systems that control our drones? Somehow a virus infected the equipment in Nevada that our pilots use the control the drones in Afghanistan. How did that happen? It is true that the military’s systems are segregated from the web but I will bet that they are connected. The segregation happens in the routers, switches, firewalls and so on. Not a physical disconnection.
Report Post »Obama_Sham
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:46pmIf it was going to happen, it would have already… My god, cyber-terrorism has been talked about since the early 1990′s (my first recollection of hearing the term)… Here we are two decades later, and the same old, tired scare tactic is still being used…
Report Post »Eliasim
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:32pmWhy don’t they just shutdown the Internet then. Do it right now. Quit making the threats and just do it. Because anyone with brains know it’s what you are hinting at, shut it down. Go ahead. Lets see what happens.
Report Post »sparkspeaks
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:49pmNov…9th is the first practice?????
Report Post »Momof3forGOD
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 1:03pm@Eliasim; Nov. 9th would be a perfect time for them to say we are in a state of emergency and therefore cannot hand these channels back to the public becuase there is a chance of terrorism…. Lord I pray that is not the case!
Report Post »alexegz30
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:27pmBefore the last election we had maybe a scare or two a year regarding a computer virus that was ended just as fast with no one looking to the government for help. It was the corporations that heightened their cyber security and made it safer.
Now that the idea to take over the internet and shut down all communications at the push of a button is being touted around (By the most anti-American administration in history) not only do we have constant hacks against the country, but even government agencies are lacking in their security. Is it because hackers are becoming that much better? Where? Schools here in the U.S. are as crappy as ever and Universities do little more than send out students with degrees that aren‘t worth the paper they’re printed on.
If you want to take over the internet like a third world country, you have to make it an emergency first. There was no emergency before Obama took office. Now there’s some crisis every other day and behold, they have a government solution to it! Health care is an emergency! Jobs were fading and stimulus is needed!
Why are there so many emergencies? Simple. Without a crisis, we think of the things government is doing and reject them. Obama knows this and has been doing everything he can to take down the very system that keeps the country strong. It is only a matter of time before he either succeeds or the country rises up and puts him and his followers to account for their actions.
Report Post »mils
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 1:19pmPerhaps we are at a critical time, and we have more fanatics than ever in our world.
Report Post »Obama = fanatics windfall..
GaryInTheMiddle
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:24pmRussian and Genius used in the same sentence? Really?
Report Post »Obama_Sham
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:44pmLOL… It is possible… I guess…
Report Post »aircraft_ee
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:52pmVery tacky. Please do not assume the Russians are not very, very smart. The Russians had much better metallurgy than the US during the Cold War; their Alfa class attack submarine was so fast we had to build a torpedo that we only “thought” could catch it; the Automatic Kalashnikov weapon of 1947 (AK-47) (that’s a 65-year-old design!) remains one of the most enduring and dependable weapons in history; their space lift vehicles could take larger payloads into orbit; and they invented the Hydrogen Bomb that could be carried in an airplane or put on a missile (Edward Teller’s first fusion weapon was so large it could only be carried by a ship).
Report Post »schmite123oh
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 1:28pm@aircraft tell your self whatever you want commie lover
Report Post »Twobyfour
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 2:49pmschmite123oh, by disregarding any advances that the enemy has made, you’re actually giving him a hand. So, in the end, it may be you who is a commie lover, albeit unwittingly.
Report Post »oldschoolgreen
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:22pmPersonnaly I could use a break from the internet. And if my blackberry went blank for a day or a year I wouldn’t sweat it.
Report Post »cntrlfrk
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:02pm‘
I am sure glad our government is spending a lot of time and money interconnecting our power grid on the internet.
:o/
Report Post »chips1
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:11pmThere’s no computer chip in Smith and Wesson. Hacking into a .357 is harder than you think.
Report Post »love the kids
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:56amThanks AL Gore, this is all your fault since you invented the internet.
Report Post »Just think, if a nuclear war breaks out because of this, the man who pretends to be the biggest Environmentalist could actually be the one who ends the earth as we know it.
Obama_Sham
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:49pmA thermo-nuclear war will only break out if Matthew Broderick plays a game with a national defense computer…
I think I’ve seen that movie before…
Report Post »mike_trivisonno
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:51amAll sensitive data is on Internet2
Report Post »Obama_Sham
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 12:51pmSensitive to who?!?
Report Post »KICKILLEGALSOUT
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:47amThe Commie Chinese are waging the largest espionage campaign in the world against us and we are losing trillions! Is there any wonder why they are developing so quickly? It doesn’t take long when you can just steal everything and claim it is your own! What do our corrupt politicians do? They want to open the doors wider to give sweetheart deals to Chinese businesses to buy our land, businesses and colonize our communities. They want to form Sister cities with Communist cities, check to see if your city has a Commie Chinese sister city, if so you can be sure their spies are in your city. Our corrupt politicians allow record numbers with 30% increases every year of Commie Chinese to flood our best schools and displace our own best and brightest. We are being sold out and our government is doing nothing to protect and defend us from the attack and invasion!
Report Post »grudgywoof
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:43amBoo!!!! I’m not scared. I believe the reason the government wants an internet kill switch is for this very reason. We need a way to seperate the internet from critical infrastructure perhaps a seperate networks such as military net (I think they have that already), power net, ect. Maybe I just don‘t understand how it works but it just seems they are using the internet because it’s a cheap way out.
Report Post »This_Individual
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:42amGenuis? Really?
Report Post »blaaaaackwoman
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:40amEvery one of yous knows that there an’t no black women involved in this. Bbbbllllllllaaaaacccccckkkkkkkk.
Report Post »Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:40amThis sounds like something the administration and especially Homeland Security will use to make our lives less free and more terrrorized by the very government here at home.
Report Post »capitalismrocks
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:38amWhat I don’t understand is there used to ARPANET and there used to MILNET, two separate network, why is it that ANY critical infrastructure is connected to the outside world at all…
I remember when we were doing Orange book security for Windows NT when it first came out, essentially the only way we were told to make it fully secure was not to have it on a network at all.
There needs to be layers in networks, the common day to day layer and a completely physically isolated operational layer, no systems with any USB or Media active capabilities, all systems are on an isolated, self contained network, behind a locked door that you have to physically access… this is how the military should be running, power systems, government, etc… then you have an outside layer – the common layer, access to the internet, email etc… so whatever happens in that layer happens, bu the internal secure layer is physically isolated and cannot be breached without physically accessing it by getting to it and actually sitting and typing on a keyboard.
Report Post »paulusmaximus
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:37amIf Eugene Kaspersky feels the threat is real and the present defenses are not sufficient to protect we should be very concerned. The anti hacker software by his name is very effective for personal use, so his knowledge of the magnitude is to be respected.It sometimes seems half the world is out to cause havoc without standing up to be counted.
Report Post »Twobyfour
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 3:03pmNot only for personal use. I have several linux servers that have it deployed. Got tired of hackers a while ago. People have no idea how many zombie boxes (personal computer and servers) are out there, just because people do not take security seriously.
If govt. tries something like generating an “imminent security threat”, it would be possible because of these people that disregard the security issues.
Report Post »miller007
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:34amCertainly hope they are using Windows…then they will not be successful since they will have to reboot all the time.
Report Post »11:11
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:33amsome people freak out if they lose signal strength on their phones, i don’t think any one would be 100% prepared for something like this to happen
Report Post »Love_John_Galt
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:42am“I AM
A MAN”
Prepared in Melbourne Florida!
Report Post »hauschild
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:30amAh, another ploy for “the gubment” to “save us from ourselves”.
Totalitarianism, anyone???
Report Post »KangarooJack
Posted on November 2, 2011 at 11:23amWe still have Bruce Willis to take care of the bad guys or the meteor, or whatever else comes our way. Actually, it is NO laughing matter! Many of the ‘not potty trained yet’ elite OWS ilk come to mind.
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