We Have Arrived at Gibson's Dystopia
Well, OK - maybe not to the extreme of William Gibson's novel Neuromancer, but I'm seeing the signs for sure. Reading the Axiom report is interesting. "Finally" is the word that comes to mind. The report opens the Key Findings with the statement:
"Axiom is responsible for directing highly sophisticated cyber espionage operations against numerous Fortune 500 companies, journalists, environmental groups, pro-democracy groups, software companies, academic institutions, and government agencies worldwide for at least the last six years. In our coordinated effort, we performed the first ever-private sponsored interdiction against a sophisticated state sponsored advanced threat group. Our efforts detected and cleaned 43,000 separate installations of Axiom tools, including 180 of their top tier implants."
Now, I don't read a ton of fiction - I'm happier with manuals and HOWTOS. But in reading this report, I can't help but wonder at what's next. Cyberwarfare is clearly here at the level of Nations and that is mildly disturbing. The fact that incredibly wealthy corporations have pulled together (like pseudo-governments) and (seemingly) taken the law into their own hands is either frightening or inspiring. I said "finally" earlier because I have always supported the idea of combative cyber security, though it is incredibly risky. But I am thinking of those who almost have to fight for themselves, the small business owner who stands to lose everything.
But here we have mega corporations re-defining the rules of cyber crime; sabotage and espianage are alive and well, reprisals are on the way. At what point before we are the recipients of computer technology pre-built with nasties at both at the hardware and software level? (And yes, for those who are catching on, I'm echoing James Turner from O'Reilly here.)
The report also notes:
"The breadth and scope of Axiom's operations served as motivation and justification for the approach adopted by the coalition of large scale data capture, analysis, and distribution of both data and analytical output to industry. In the intervening period, the coalition has received a substantial amount of information relating to the removal of these malware tools. To date, over 43,000 separate installations of Axiom-related tools have been removed from machines protected by Operation SMN partners, and 180 of those infections were examples of Hikit, the late-stage persistence and data exfiltration tool that represents the height of an Axiom victim's operational lifecycle."
Again, "finally" - the kind of language I like to read, but also again, how far? It's similar to old-fashioned terrorism where we have to reach that point of "enough". but then the path we take to combat it may lead us down a dark road, and in some ways make the enemy stronger.
Maybe for now this is what we need. But I am holding my breath a little for the backlash. In the meantime, saddle up. Tech just got a whole lot more serious, and we need to sharpen our skills all the more.
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User Rank: Strategist
10/29/2014 | 11:47:55 AM