Cyber Wars: A Growing, Worldwide Problem

Cyber attacks on the increase...

More and more countries are capable of cyber attacks.

Editor's note: Cyber attacks are being reported around the world. The American intelligence community has confirmed Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, and FBI Director Christopher Wray and National Intelligence Director Dan Coats said last week that Russian interference in the US continues.

A new bloomberg.com report focuses on countries using digitally enabled suppression.

Foreign Affairs reports on Dan Coats' warnings about new Russian attacks in the US and how Russian hackers have hit Germany and Ukraine,

A decade ago, Estonia became one of the first countries to suffered Russian computer attacks and has since become a cyber hotshot.

For more on three fascinating reports:

A global guide to state-sponsored trolling

Only a few years after Twitter and Facebook were celebrated as the spark of democratic movements worldwide, states and their proxies are hatching new forms of digitally enabled suppression that were unthinkable before the age of social media giants, according to evidence collected from computer sleuths, researchers and documents across more than a dozen countries, bloomberg.com reports.

Combining virtual hate mobs, surveillance, misinformation, anonymous threats, and the invasion of victims' privacy, states and political parties around the globe have created an increasingly online playbook that is difficult for the platforms to detect or counter, bloomberg added.

For more of a timely report: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-government-
sponsored-cyber-militia-cookbook/

The next cyber battlefield

The digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under attack, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats warned starkly last week, Rob Knake reports on foreignaffairs.com.

Most commentators took his declaration that "warning lights are blinking red" as a reference to state-sponsored Russian hackers interfering in the upcoming midterm elections, as they did in the 2016 presidential election, Knake wrote.

But to focus on interference may be to fight the last war, fixating on past attacks while missing the most acute vulnerabilities now, Knake noted.

For more of a timely, new report: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/north-america/2018-07-19/next-cyber-battleground?cid=soc-tw&pgtype=hpg

How cyber attacks transformed Estonia

In April 2007 a dispute over a statue in Estonia sparked one of the world's first cyber attacks of one country on another.  Estonia was hit by Russian digital interference for weeks, Darmien McGuinness reported on bbc.com.

The attacks showed how easily a hostile state can exploit potential tensions within another society, McGuinness wrote.

But they also helped make Estonia a cyber security hotshot today, he noted.

For more: https://www.bbc.com/news/39655415

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