June 12, 2013
The Administration let The Washington Post know that it has finally summoned the gumption to use a hacker to disrupt Inspire.
In case you are not up on the latest Jihadist reading, Inspire is the English-language online magazine Al Qaeda produces to inspire individuals to commit acts of mayhem and murder. The Administration finally allowed U.S. intelligence to take it off-line.
The likely cause was the inspiration of Jihadist web sites in prompted the Tsarnev brothers to blow the limbs off of Americans celebrating at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
For years, a somewhat spooky source has told us that the U.S. government was failing to do truly imaginative troll-like tricks – like replacing Inspire with a look-alike magazine that shows the horror and futility of terrorism.
Now we hear that U.S. intelligence has been doing just that, including changing bomb recipes to make them inoperative. Administration CYA spin or CIA fact?
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June 5, 2013
A troubling piece by Daniel McGroarty of the Carmot Strategic Group in Washington, D.C., explains why China’s recent penetration of the plans for major U.S. weapons systems is so threatening.
"The only thing worse than China apparently stealing the blueprints to the U.S.'s most advanced weapons platforms is that Chinese defense technologists would now be able to posit precisely which sub-systems are most critical to battlefield functionality. If there is a material or alloy that caused U.S. defense designers to stay up nights looking for the optimum performance, China will know it. If there's a function prone to faulting, with consequences critical to overall system performance, China will know that, too.
Clearly, in terms of China's own weapons programs, they'll be able to skip the costly learning curve and go straight to the winning candidate favored in the final U.S. system. But more than that, in terms of counter-measures, they'll know which node in the overall system could reducea U.S. weapons platform to an idling shell, or worse still, render it impotent in the heat of battle."
McGroarty goes on to speculate that perhaps the Chinese could further undermine our weapons systems by introducing inferior components or designed flaws into the supply chain. In this cyber theft, plans were apparently downloaded for the F/A-18 fighter jet, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and the Patriot and Aegis missile systems, among others.
Cybersecurity is national security.
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May 29, 2013
June 19 • 8:00 – 10:00 am
Greenway Office Park, 145 Pinelawn Road, Melville, NY
Digital Assassination: Protecting Your Brand Against Online Attacks
Online attacks among brands are becoming prevalent in today’s digital society. It is essential to understand how these attacks could affect your brand or business’s reputation.
Richard Torrenzano will be discussing computer attacks and issues, crisis management, and social media. He will also address survival tactics of businesses in an era of intense public scrutiny, media proliferation and hype.
Richard is Chairman and Chief Executive of The Torrenzano Group, a reputation and high-stakes issues management firm specializing in building and protecting corporate reputations, enhancing shareholder value and helping clients grow their businesses.
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May 21, 2013
Many believed that by raising the issue, the Obama Administration would shame China into shutting down, or at least ramping down, its cyber war on American business. Cyber-security firm Mandiant is reporting that the infamous hacking unit in Shanghai is once again freely raiding U.S. corporate secrets, product designs, negotiating strategies and other sensitive information.
At the very least, we should disinform these trolls. Get our best people together after hours, open some fine wine to get the creative juices going, and start creating digital blueprints for the craziest, scariest products you can image – and let those waste months trying to figure them out!
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