![\"Attribution-080715\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/Attribution-080715-374x281.jpg\")
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Sorry if I got you alarmed yesterday. After I wrote about the Chinese weaponizing the personal data they stole on you and me and all my friends and family, it turns out that particular shoe has not dropped yet.<\/p>\n
A few minutes after mashing the button on my trusty lap-top the word began to spread- from NBC and The Daily Beast that Pentagon sources were saying the attack- the \u201csophisticated spearphising\u201d that gained access to the DoD unclassified (but sensitive) network connected to the internet actually came from the Russians.<\/p>\n
I have always contended that attribution is the toughest part of the cyber game, since hackers can jump around and coopt other people\u2019s machines to do their dirty work, and then hide behind yet another server with tools to render them anonymous.<\/p>\n
They can cover their tracks well, and even lead investigators to suspicious entities that we would blame any way.<\/p>\n
So the fact that this may have originated as a Kremlin plot doesn\u2019t mean that the stolen data in China hasn\u2019t also be compromised as thoroughly as Hillary\u2019s private server was.<\/p>\n
It is a mess, and despite the gravity of the situation, there doesn\u2019t appear much alarm. Too hard to understand, I suppose, and people might begin to not trust anything.<\/p>\n
I got there a long time ago.<\/p>\n
The latest version of the story is that the Russians attacked the emails of 4,000 military and civilian personnel, and as of yesterday the system was down for eleven days.<\/p>\n
Senior government officials claimed the hack represents the \u201c\u2018most sophisticated\u2019 cyberbreach in U.S. military history.\u201d<\/p>\n
The attack occurred only 16 days after Marine General Joe Dunford, nominee to be the next Chairman (and first Marine) of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He testified before the Senate Armed Services that he considered Russia to be the greatest threat to American national security, ahead of the PRC, North Korea and ISIS.<\/p>\n
Looks like Joe ticked off the Bear. Oh well. I think the price of oil at $45 a barrel is enough for Mr. Putin to worry about, since at those prices he will be bankrupt soon enough. But bankrupt people with nuclear weapons still concern me.<\/p>\n
What is the Joint Staff doing about it? They are \u201ccreating mock hacking scenarios\u201d that must be completed before personnel can again access the system. As I said yesterday, if the adversary already knows your spouse, kids, duty stations and addresses for your entire life, I don\u2019t think it would be very difficult to fool you into thinking you are communicating with someone you know.<\/p>\n
Just like this email. Wait, don\u2019t click on the link!<\/p>\n
Welcome to the brave new world. I just don\u2019t know to whom we can attribute it’s creation.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
\nwww.vicsocotra.com
\nTwitter: @jayare303<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sorry if I got you alarmed yesterday. After I wrote about the Chinese weaponizing the personal data they stole on you and me and all my friends and family, it turns out that particular shoe has not dropped yet. A few minutes after mashing the button on my trusty lap-top the word began to spread- […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10986,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10984\/revisions\/10986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}