Posted on 06/09/2021 12:15:24 PM PDT by Kaslin
It's nationwide knowledge that in early May the Colonial Pipeline company suffered a severe cyberattack that shut down its pipeline connecting Texas to the East Coast. On June 1, JBS Foods suffered another crippling cyberattack. According to industry estimates, JBS controls 20 percent of the slaughtering capacity for American cattle and hogs. The JBS attack also generated headlines.
The FBI and security officials believe two criminal organizations conducted the attacks. Their names sound a bit like those of the sinister super gangs found in James Bond novels. However, these gangs aren't fiction nor are their crimes.
A crime group called DarkSide shut down Colonial's southeastern U.S. pipeline. To remove its "ransomware" malware and restore service, DarkSide demanded Colonial pay a ransom. Colonial complied.
The FBI attributes the JBS attack to REvil, a cyber mob linked to Russia.
The good news is the Department of Justice has recovered $2.3 million of the $4 million ransom Colonial paid.
This is good news of the grim, hard lesson sort: The economic damage caused by the cyberattacks, and the media coverage they received, revived public concern for infrastructure security in the U.S. and Canada.
Colonial Pipeline runs an energy distribution network, which makes it a prime target for criminals seeking a quick ransom. The hack caused a spike in gasoline prices. With each day of the shutdown, the macroeconomic cost rose. So Colonial paid.
JBS Foods, the world's largest meat supplier, is a key link in North America's food supply chain. The JBS attack shut down meatpacking plants in the U.S. and Canada. Secondary effects were also significant. The plant shutdowns disrupted livestock deliveries -- a damaging economic chain reaction in the U.S. and Canada, which could crimp food supplies worldwide.
The digital crimes national security dimensions also deserve examination.
Consider their parallels in physical (kinetic) attacks in conventional warfare.
Shutting down a pipeline is roughly the nonkinetic equivalent of a German U-boat torpedoing an American oil tanker in a Britain-bound convoy. The hack and the U-boat attack both interrupt fuel supplies.
Over time, reducing food production and disrupting food distribution will create starvation conditions. It is a classic tactic to force a besieged city to surrender. Think of soldiers burning farms in rebel areas to starve the insurgents. An even more hideous comparison: a biological warfare attack that infects a nation's cattle and swine with foot and mouth disease.
Obviously, these types of violent, physical attacks do enormous damage. But cyberhacks can also have costly and devastating national and international effects. This is why attacks such as the one on the Colonial Pipeline are, in my opinion, acts of war.
Russia's 2008 attack on Georgia and its 2014 invasion of Crimea demonstrate that cyberattacks can supplement and intensify the effects of physical attacks.
Step back and consider this scenario: What if DarkSide and REvil had connections to an adversarial nation? The FBI already connects REvil to Russia.
Colonial's pipeline and JBS' slaughtering facilities were "choke points" in their respective supply chains. Attacking an energy target and a food distribution target has the suspicious appearance of an enemy nation probing American supply choke points with the goal of exploiting them should a conventional shooting conflict erupt. At a minimum, the probe also inflicts immediate economic harm on the U.S.
Using gangs to do the dirty work gives the enemy nation plausible deniability.
Given Revil's Russian connections, did the Kremlin encourage and perhaps facilitate the JBS Foods attack? It is a question worth asking and one I hope the CIA, NSA and FBI will help answer.
Maxine Waters worried publicly that if North Korea launched a nuclear weapon at the United States President Trump would use it as an excuse to start a war.
don’t care how they are defined
i want all who particpated found and executed
ditto
AND the congressional ransomware case they have been dealin with for weeks but only disclosed this week
In the old days it would be but now it’s just common occurrence tolerated by all. I can even imagine that it was done done by our own NSA/CIA/DHS (at the behest of the resident’s handlers) cause as Snowdon revealed we can make anything on the internet look like anything we want it to. No????
Correcto...what a twisted world we live in.
“The FBI attributes the JBS attack to REvil, a cyber mob linked to Russia”
Is this the same FBI that claims Trump was a Russian spy and Hillary did nothing wrong? The same homo-dancing backflipping in a Denver bar and accidently shooting a guy in the ankle FBI? The same FBI that that says antifa has no organization or funding? The same FBI that KNELT before BLM?
THAT FBI says Russia did it?
I’ll agree...
Yep.
Kids, don’t tell your root password to anyone. Someone on the inside was either involved or incredibly stupid. I’ve seen companies use a single password across many bank accounts, just insane how stupid it can get.
Almost impossible to believe the FBI...and no way anyone associated with Biden. No one to trust.
We had none of this under Trump. Look at the trashing of everything our founding fathers believed. Biden is trash
owned by Obama.
It’s basically Obama’s third illegal term.
It clearly is an act of war. But what are we going to do about it? We aren’t going to start launching missiles at Vladivostok.
“Linked to Russia” = suspected of Russian ties because they don’t seem to attack Russia (Or China, or Bahrein, or Monaco). Gee, maybe because Putin would have them whacked, not given a cushy minimum-security prison with plenty of video games and exercise equipment?
“Were the Colonial Pipeline and JBS Foods Hacks Acts of War?”
No. An act of war under this administration would be if someone stole Joe’s ice cream cone.
They are only practice.
I would bet money that our CORRUPT government did it so they could BLAME the skyrocketing prices on gas and food oN “The RUSSIAN HACKERS” and not on BIDEN !
PROVE ME WRONG !
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