Chris Baker's Blog

US counterterrorism expert Cofer Black warned Wednesday that the Cold War has given way to a "Code War" in which cyber weapons can be unleashed with devastating consequences.

A sophisticated hacking campaign exposed earlier by computer security firm McAfee was no surprise to Cofer, who saw it as a sign of more to come. The United States, United Nations, defense contractors and the International Olympic Committee were targets of a massive global cyber spying campaign, McAfee said, with China seen as the likely culprit.

California-based McAfee said in a report that it had identified 72 victims in 14 countries of a hacking effort dubbed "Operation Shady RAT," which it traced back to at least 2006.

Read the full article by Glenn Chapman (AFP)

Wired's Kim Zetter has written a fascinating article detailing the unravelling of the Stuxnet malware, the world’s first publicized cyberweapon. Research from experts around the globe have revealed that Stuxnet's intent was industrial sabotage of centrifuges in Iran's developing Nuclear facilities. While most of the over-arching details concerning Stuxnet have been discovered, many of its details still remain a mystery.

Read the full article on Wired's Threat Level

President Obama will give the United States Commerce Department the authority over a proposed national cybersecurity measure that would involve giving each American a unique online identity.

It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.¹

If you're still using Internet Explorer, shame on you. While a fresh install of Firefox could be called "samey" by laymen compared to IE 8, it's not. The main difference is Firefox allows you to add functionality with add-ons created by third parties greatly expanding functionality. Well that and being able to fine tune internal settings, but that's for another post. Here are some of my favorites that enhance my web experience in ways that aren't possible in any other browser.

A secret government report on cyberattacks says that 86 per cent of large Canadian corporations have been "hit" and that espionage hacking on the private sector has doubled in two years.

"Cyberespionage attacks are causing considerable economic damage," says the 2010 "threat paper," released to Postmedia News through access-to-information laws.

The heavily redacted report was prepared by the Public Safety Department with input from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Defence Department, the RCMP and the Privy Council Office.

Read the full article on the Vancouver Sun