Russian Hackers Spying on NATO: Business as Usual

Following the news of the new Russian 'Sandworm' hack that is exploiting a bug in Microsoft Windows to spy on NATO, EU, Ukraine and others, Tim Erlin, director of IT security and risk strategy for  Tripwire explains why this is no surprise:

"It's a short path from shoe phones to zero days. It's simply not surprising that this kind of activity has been going on. Russia, the United States, Britain and others have long histories of very strong and effective spy organizations. There should be little surprise that these groups have continued their missions through the boom of technology.

"Defending against such a targeted attack is extremely difficult. When the attacker is willing to spend significant resources to compromise you specifically, the playing field can be very uneven. As an industry, we tend to focus on the many broad threats that exist, but these kinds of targeted and sophisticated campaigns may actually do more damage."

Conflict and Cooperation in Cyberspace: The Challenge to National Security, edited by Panayotis Yannakogeorgos and Adam Lowther of the Air Force Research Institute, brings together some of the world’s most distinguished military leaders, scholars, cyber operators, and policymakers in a discussion of current and future challenges that cyberspace poses to the United States and the world. Maintaining a focus on policy-relevant solutions, it offers a well-reasoned study of how to prepare for war, while attempting to keep the peace in the cyberspace domain.