There be unfriendly forces lurking

Funny, but the title "Hunt for Red October" has been coming to mind lately, then today I came across this headline "Red October Espionage Network Rivals Flame" at Information Week/Security.  In the article author Mathew J. Schwartz states:

Security researchers have uncovered an espionage malware network that's been operating undetected for at least five years and that has likely stolen quantities of data that stretch into the terabytes.

"The campaign, identified as 'Rocra' -- short for 'Red October' -- is currently still active, with data being sent to multiple command-and-control servers, through a configuration which rivals in complexity the infrastructure of the Flame malware," read research published by Kaspersky Lab.

Flame malware was discovered in 2012.  There is an interesting article by Kim Zetter at Wired with the title "Coders Behind the Flame Malware Left Incriminating Clues on Control Servers."  The article ranks Flame third after Stuxnet, then Duqu. 

Sidestepping the hacker vs. cracker debate, I submit that we're really talking about cyberwarfare, whether conducted by a loosely-knit group of collaborators or a country.  In this Wikipedia article is the following:

The Economist describes cyberspace as "the fifth domain of warfare."

In its article defining cyberwarfare, Rand states:

 Cyber warfare involves the actions by a nation-state or international organization to attack and attempt to damage another nation's computers or information networks through, for example, computer viruses or denial-of-service attacks.

That's not quite complete.  Classified information and corporations' intellectual properties are also being targeted as reported by the Los Angeles Times in "U.S. spy agencies to detail cyber-attacks from abroad" by Ken Dilanian, Washington Bureau.

Of course the U.S. and Israel are in the mix too (cartoon by Arend Van Dam at Political Cartoons).

In closing, seems to me -- if you use free antivirus software, it's that same as installing a fox in the henhouse.

-- Marge

Some recent cartoons that resonate (for me)

Editorial, aka political, cartoons offer us a glance at current issues and sometimes evoke a laugh. And sometimes they carry a message that goes deeper than the topic at hand.  Since I realize that not everyone sees things the same way, my offering today comes with the "for me" caveat.

At the US News & World Report site in a section called January Whispers I found this cartoon by Dan Wasserman:

At The Week is this gem by Bill Day:

From David Horsey's blog at the LA Times site, called Top of the Ticket, here's one:

In my online look-about today I found an organization for editorial cartoonists -- the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists (AAEC).  You can find cartoons here as well, such as Adam Zyglis on climate change:

That's it for today, folks.  Have a great weekend.

-- Marge