Cyberwarfare

Cyber Attacks: The Challenge of Attribution

Over the past few months I’ve had the pleasure of being an intern at VERTIC (Verification Research, Training and Information Centre) in London. I’ve contributed my nuclear skills, my engineering skills, and my ability to crack jokes while in the office, all to a good time and some seriously productive work.

Yesterday, VERTIC’s quarterly publication “Trust and Verify” included an article written by a VERTIC researcher and myself titled: Cyber Attacks: The Challenge of Attribution, where we discuss just how hard attribution is in cyber attacks and the challenges it presents to verification regimes.

Below are the pages to out of the article, or you can click HERE.

Cybersecurity

From Soft to Firm: New Cybersecurity Challenges Targeting Firmware

I was doing research not too long ago to talk about the Stuxnet worm as I find it an incredible piece of technology and wanted to pitch my two cents at it (I was writing the now defunct “Sucks to Stux” piece, but don’t cry for me Argentina! This is piece is better, that’s The NuclearFarmboy Guarantee ®.) when I came across a nifty little group called “Equation”. So I thought to myself, “ooh another hacker group! Let’s check it out!” Boy, did I jump down the rabbit hole.

First things first, let’s talk a little about Stuxnet. If you’re thinking that it is the system responsible for this:

Running Windows 1984
(Photo Credit: Wikipedia and Orion Pictures)

Then you are wrong. You are thinking of Skynet, not Stuxnet (as much as we all would love to listen to some 1980s synth music while being chased by a half-naked Austrian robot).

What is Stuxnet and what did it do? Well, I’m not here to point out any fingers to world governments or policies to curb/sabotage a third government’s nuclear program (even with thinly veiled references). That’s just not me. I’m a nerd, I love talking about code, science, and baseball so let’s talk about how Stuxnet does what it does and how it did what it did regardless of who made it. Stuxnet was a computer worm meant for cyber-sabotage (cue the Beastie Boys) by targeting programmable logic controllers, or PLCs.

What is a PLC? Well imagine your computer wants do do something in the real world (because yay automation!) and it wants to open doors, control factory processes, assembly lines, or…uranium enrichment centrifuges. These PLCs are essentially mechanisms that translate the code (011010000110100100100001) to physical movements. Just like a keyboard logs a physical action onto a digital code, these PLCs translate the commands from the CPU to do an action (such as speeding up or slowing down your centrifuges). Isn’t the future neat?

Continue reading “From Soft to Firm: New Cybersecurity Challenges Targeting Firmware” →

Countries, Cybersecurity, DPRK, North korea

The D Stands for “Derp”: The DPRK and Cyberspace.

Who would have thought that James Franco and Seth Rogen (and of course the wonderful Lizzy Caplan) would become symbols for freedom of speech?

Well as you ALL are aware, this holiday season Sony Pictures was supposed to release a movie titled “The Interview” where lovable fools James Franco and Seth Rogen were going to interview (duh) the one and only Kim Jong-Un! Then Lizzy Caplan and the CIA come around and ask them to assassinate Dear Leader. The movie offered a ridiculous premise, a fun cast, and some laughs at the expense of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Now let’s be honest, we’ve all made a joke here and there about DPRK. Everyone likes to pick on them, their not-so-secret tunnels, their nuclear program that goes boom (for the most part), and their many shenanigans. Unfortunately, it seems that “The Interview” was one step too far for Kim Jong and the Gang as they did not seem to find it as humorous as we find it or their ICBMs.

Soon enough, cyberattacks on Sony that led to massive leaks of confidential emails, coupled with the threats to anyone who goes to see the movie, ultimately led to the movie being pulled from theaters…put on the internet…put back in theaters…put back on the internet…and end up with more free promotion than any movie ever. (Maybe. Probably. Just a hyperbole.) Now if you ask the good ol’ US of A who dun hacked Sony they’ll tell you it was the DPRK and so the media since then has been having a field day with this, talking about IP addresses, internets, intranets, and all kinds of nets from “cybersecurity experts” who talk for hours without actually telling us what an IP address even is.

So in order to solve that pickle I say let’s talk about some of those terms with words we all understand all while we learn about the DPRK’s computer network and it’s corresponding cybersecurity!

Let’s start by looking at some of the DPRK’s networks. Say you’re a happy citizen of the DPRK that today has had enough to eat thanks to Dear Leader’s beach party that’s going on all the time (bonus points for 30 Rock reference); you go home and you boot up your computer and you have internet! Isn’t it great? Well, as it turns out most of the “internet” in North Korea is just an intranet that is heavily monitored, regulated, and censored by the government (and here I am complaining about Comcast).

What is an “intranet” vs an “internet” you ask?

Continue reading “The D Stands for “Derp”: The DPRK and Cyberspace.” →