Home Tags CYBER-KINETIC SECURITY

Tag: CYBER-KINETIC SECURITY

Smart City 5G Privacy
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities. The UN estimates that by 2050 that proportion will be 68% - more than 6 billion people living in high-density conditions. This raises significant challenges. What is the best way to ensure that human needs are met in a fair and equitable way? How will we face challenges like resource strain, waste and pollution management, traffic congestion and connectivity? In response to these wicked problems, cities are increasingly relying on smart technologies to foster greater efficiency and sustainable growth. These interventions do not, however, come without their own complications. Just...
Cybersecurity IoT 5G Cyber-Kinetic Risks
Getting smart about security in smart systems Smart used to be something we called people or pets. It wasn't a term one would use to describe one's hairbrush. That is changing, of course, in an era of accelerating digital transformation. Now we have smart homes, smart cities, smart grids, smart refrigerators and, yes, even smart hairbrushes. What's not so smart, though, is the way the cybersecurity and cyber-kinetic security risks of these systems are often overlooked, and with new horizon technologies like 5G, these problems are set to grow exponentially. Cyber-physical systems and the smartification of our world Cyber-connected objects have become...
Cyber-Kinetic Security Railway
Cybersecuring railway systems from potential attackers must become paramount in the digitization that those systems currently undergo. Their cybersecurity is too closely interlinked with the railway safety to leave the door open to disruption. To make matters worse, they are increasingly being targeted. Railway systems have long been critical. Mass transit systems move hundreds of thousands of people throughout urban areas each work day. Freight systems move an estimated 40 tons of freight for every person in the U.S. every year. Imagine the chaos if they were disrupted. These systems have always been challenging to secure. Even urban mass transit systems...
IoT Cybersecurity Framework Government
The human brain is programmed to keep us safe and secure. Yes, we are separated from the rest of the animal kingdom by our advanced capacities of sense-making and decision-making, but at the core of our grey matter remains some primitive but powerful tech tasked with keeping us alive. If your amygdala senses danger, it makes a split second decision and triggers the fight-or-flight response, flooding your body with hormones like adrenaline that prepare you for battle. This overrides the cortex – the sophisticated part of the brain we rely on for problem-solving and strategic thinking – making it...
IEMI
As IoT adoption continues to proliferate, manufactures and adopters are increasingly aware of cybersecurity risks to IoT. Yet, even among the IoT security professionals, one significant potential remote attack vector is often overlooked: intentional electromagnetic interference (IEMI). Electromagnetic interference (EMI) surrounds us – natural causes, such as solar flares and lightning; and man-made sources such as radio and TV broadcasting, radars, microwaves and many others all emit electromagnetic waves that could disrupt operation of electrical and electronic devices. That is, if devices wouldn’t comply with numerous electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) standards which ensure correct operation in common electromagnetic environment and resilience...
Canada Critical Infrastructure
Targeted cyberattacks against critical infrastructure (CI) are increasing on a global scale. Critical systems are rapidly being connected to the internet, affording attackers opportunities to target virtual systems that operate and monitor physical structures and physical processes through various modes of cyberattack. When people think of cyberattacks, their minds often go first to the financial sector. After all, that’s the type of attack people hear about most frequently; it’s where the money is and it’s what seems most natural for cybercriminals to target. Enterprises frequently focus on such cyber-enabled financial crimes to the point that they give too little thought...
IoT Bomb Stuxnet
While Stuxnet is gone, the world now knows what can be accomplished through cyber-kinetic attacks. As we approach the 10th anniversary of when Stuxnet was (likely) deployed, it is worthwhile to examine the effect it still has on our world. As the world’s first-ever cyberweapon, it opened Pandora’s box. It was the first true cyber-kinetic weapon – and it changed military history and is changing world history, as well. Its impact on the future cannot be overstated. Stuxnet’s beginnings Stuxnet is believed to have been conceived jointly by the U.S. and Israel in 2005 or 2006 to cripple Iran’s nuclear weapon development...
Cyber-Kinetic Railway
In their growing efforts to increase efficiencies through digitization and automation, railways are becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyber-kinetic attacks as they move away from strictly mechanical systems and bespoke standalone systems to digital, open-platform, standardized equipment built using Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) components. In addition, the increasing use of networked control and automation systems enable remote access of public and private networks. Finally, the large geographical spread of railway systems, involving multiple providers and even multiple countries, and the vast number of people involved in operating and maintaining those widespread systems offer attackers an almost unlimited number of attack...
IEMI
As our cities, our transportation, our energy and manufacturing – our everything – increasingly embrace Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Controls Systems (ICS), securing its underlying cyber-physical systems (CPS) grows ever more crucial. Yet, even among engineers and cybersecurity specialists, one potential attack trajectory is often overlooked: Intentional Electromagnetic Interference (IEMI). ICS and IoT – digital systems that run today’s modern society – rely on changes in electrical charges flowing through physical equipment. Creating the 1s and 0s of which all digital information is composed requires electronic switching processes in circuits. The current used in this process is not...
Cyber-Kinetic
The attacker stepped out from behind a hedge in the upper-class suburban neighborhood, being careful to stay in the shadows. Across the street, the last lights shining through the windows of the house had just flickered out. She tugged the bottom of her black hoodie into place and pulled the hood up over her head, casting her face deeper in shadow. Her target sat in the driveway at the front of the house, a bright red and completely decked out SUV. Glancing up and down the street to ensure no one was looking, she slipped across the street into the...
Maritime Cyber-Kinetic
The maritime industry faces a not-so-distant future when ships will be completely autonomous, using navigation data that they receive to plot their own courses with only minimal input from shoreside control centers. The efficiencies this could bring are massive, but before this happens, cybersecurity issues must be addressed. Not only are many vessels configured in ways that invite cyberattacks, but security practices also need to be improved before the industry can safely navigate its future. An increasingly digitized maritime industry A fleet of 250 autonomous vessels may launch soon. And that would be only the beginning, according to McKinsey and Co....
Tangible threat of cyber kinetic attacks
Connecting physical objects and processes to the cyber world offers us capabilities that exponentially exceed the expectations of science fiction writers and futurists of past generations. But it also introduces disquieting possibilities. Those possibilities reach beyond cyberspace to threaten the physical world in which we live and – potentially – our own physical well-being. That's the threat of cyber-kinetic attacks. Our physical world is becoming more connected – which makes it more dependent on the cyber world. Many physical objects around us are no longer just physical, but extend into cyberspace, being remotely monitored and controlled. Increasingly, our factories, cities,...
Stuxnet Cyber-Physical Weapon
Stuxnet was the first true cyber-kinetic weapon, designed to cripple the Iranian – and perhaps also the North Korean – nuclear weapon programs. It succeeded in slowing the Iranian program, although it was discovered before it could deal the program a fatal blow. Its significance goes far beyond what it did. It marks a clear turning point in the military history and cybersecurity. Its developers hoped for a weapon that could destroy strategic targets without civilian damage possible in traditional warfare. Instead, it opened the door to cyberattacks that can deliver widespread disruption to the very civilian populations it was...
Maritime Cybersecurity
The open seas have long attracted those who yearned for adventure. The risk of pitting oneself against a vast and unforgiving sea has tested sailors’ mettle for millennia. It’s not surprising that the maritime industry is one that thrives on facing – and overcoming – risks. But, as technology increasingly dominates it, growing risks exist that the industry dare not ignore. Its growing effort to increase efficiencies through digitization and automation has made it an inviting target for 21st century pirates whose weapons are not cutlasses, but computers. Vulnerabilities in maritime systems and security practices threaten to inflict huge losses...
Cyber-Kinetic Threat
A growing number of today’s entertainment options show protagonists battling cyber-attacks that target the systems at the heart of our critical infrastructure whose failure would cripple modern society. It’s easy to watch such shows and pass off their plots as something that could never happen. The chilling reality is that those plots are often based on real cyber-kinetic threats that either have already happened, are already possible, or are dangerously close to becoming reality. Cyberattacks occur daily around the world. Only when one achieves sufficient scope to grab the attention of the news media – such as the WannaCry ransomware...