The drumbeat of cyberwar

imagesThe White House has said it will step up diplomatic pressure overcybercrime and intellectual property theft from US businesses and security interests, in an announcement that indirectly cast China as one of the biggest perpetrators, reports today’s edition of The Guardian.

“The US attorney general, Eric Holder, said the plan included working with like-minded governments to tackle offenders using trade restrictions and criminal prosecutions. There would be a 120-day review to see whether new US legislation is needed.

“A hacker in China can acquire source code from a software company in Virginia without leaving his or her desk,” Holder said. Continue reading “The drumbeat of cyberwar”

Cyberwar against Israel

“The Israeli government said that its websites logged about 44 million hacking attempts following the bombardment of Gaza Strip since Wednesday,” says the technology site, The Droid Guy in an article today entitled “Israeli Websites Under Attack.” The essay continues:

“Yuval Steinitz, the country’s Finance Minister, said that an unnamed government website was successfully hacked only once, but it  was back online after 10 minutes.

“Government websites in Israel are typically hit hundreds of times in a typical day, the Finance Ministry said. Websites related to national defense of Israel were hit the hardest although the site of the country’s president also logged 10 million hacking attempts. The Foreign Ministry site was hacked 7 million times while the prime minister’s site experienced about 3 million attempts.

“Although sources of the attacks came from around the world, most of them originated from Israel and Palestinian territories. Minister Steinitz said: ‘The ministry’s computer division will continue to block the millions of cyber attacks. We are enjoying the fruits of our investment in recent years in developing computerized defense systems.’”

“He has reportedly instructed the ministry to use back up systems to counter the hacking attempts on government websites. Both combatants have utilized social media recently to gain support around the world.  The Israeli Defense Force is using almost all social media sites while Palestinian terrorists are embracing Twitter. For complete story, see, “Israeli Websites Under Attack.”