John Ivison: Forget the Cold War, this cyber conflict is hot

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The continual attempts to disrupt government and commerce ‘would be an act of war in a different era’ said one insider. ‘We’re in a conflict, it just looks a little bit different’

Author of the article:

John Ivison

Publishing date:

Apr 07, 2021  •  4 hours ago  •  5 minute read  •  62 Comments

Sheriff Bob Gualtieri speaks at a news conference in Oldsmar, Fla., on Feb. 8 about a hacker gaining access to Oldsmar’s water treatment plant to taint the water supply.
Sheriff Bob Gualtieri speaks at a news conference in Oldsmar, Fla., on Feb. 8 about a hacker gaining access to Oldsmar’s water treatment plant to taint the water supply. Photo by Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office via AP

Two days before Superbowl LV in Tampa in early February, someone hacked into a water treatment plant in nearby Pinellas County and tried to poison Florida’s water supply. The unknown attacker used a password to break into the remote access software platform that controls the plant and adjusted the level of sodium hydroxide to more than 100 times normal levels – an act that would have had catastrophic consequences had a sharp-eyed operator not spotted the move and re-adjusted the chemical levels.

American investigators were contacted by Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, which has experience with water facility attacks, after a similar incident in 2020 that the NCD’s director said was “a changing point in the history of cyber warfare.” He noted that the attack against Israel was not accompanied by a ransom demand, suggesting it was not the work of cyber-criminals.

The source, or sources, of the attacks remains unknown, but it is apparent that cyber-espionage is not a benign activity.

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Canada’s adversaries in the cyber-sphere are constantly searching for vulnerabilities and trawling for administrator credentials.

Yet there is a remarkable lack of public outcry when it emerges that cyber-attacks were committed by Russia, China, Iran or North Korea.

The frontline defence against such bad actors is the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Cyber-centre), which issued a threat assessment last year.

“We judge it is very unlikely that cyber…

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