14 DAY TRIAL // In the past few months, United States officials have made numerous statements about the dangers posed by cyberattacks launched by other states against the nation’s infrastructures. However, experts highlight the fact that most of the high-profile attacks are launched by the US, not against them.
F-Secure Chief Research Officer Mikko Hypponen, who has been highly vocal about state-sponsored attacks and high-profile threats in the past period, underscores that most of the campaigns analyzed by security solutions providers have been linked to the US government.
“If we look for offensive cyber attacks that have been linked back to a known government, we mostly find attacks that have been launched by United States, not against them. So far, antivirus companies have found five different malware attacks linked to operation 'Olympic Games' run by US and Israel,” Hypponen explained.
Furthermore, he emphasized the fact that when the New York Times published a report in which it pointed the finger at the Obama administration as being responsible for the attacks, no one denied being involved. All they were interested in was who leaked the information to the press.
“As United States is doing offensive cyber attacks against other countries, certainly other countries feel that they are free to do the same. Unfortunately the United States has the most to lose from attacks like these,” the expert added.
Editor’s note. The distributed denial-of-service attacks launched these days by Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters might be called a cyber-offensive against the US. But what if Iran (as a state) isn’t behind the attacks? What if the attacks are really launched by a group of hacktivists who are simply after the removal of the controversial movie featuring the Prophet Mohammed?
High-intensity DDOS attacks are dangerous and they can certainly cause some damage, but they’re not impossible to fend off, especially if you know that you are about to be targeted. Just ask the guys from Prolexic, Radware or CloudFlare.