The recent Fourth of July holiday weekend in the U.S. brought the latest installment in the wearying litany of colossal cyberattacks. The breach of the Miami-based software company Kaseya, which combined a supply chain attack with ransomware, affected hundreds of organizations all over the world—from kindergartens in New Zealand to a Swedish supermarket chain representing 20 percent of the country’s food retailers. The company at the center of the incident, Kaseya, offers “complete, automated IT management software for [managed service providers] and IT Teams,” according to its website. Put another way, Kaseya software has low-level, privileged access right across the [...]
Last week, the Biden administration took the bold step of imposing economic sanctions in response to an act of cyber espionage, namely the SolarWinds attack. It seems that the new U.S. administration is finally getting serious about standing up to Russian aggression in cyberspace. But from the perspective of international law, the move is controversial and could potentially come back to bite the U.S. in the future, given its own cyber capabilities. The release of the Executive Order announcing the sanctions, which also respond to Russian meddling in the 2020 U.S. presidential elections and other actions, coincided with a call [...]
Over the past year, new threats to peace and security have emerged so quickly it is difficult to keep up. The COVID-19 crisis, now well into its second year, will surely continue to rage for some time, and climate change is likely to fuel widespread upheaval in the future. Extremism and polarization, fueled by social media, permit the ancient hatreds of fanaticism, misogyny and racism to inspire terrorism, mass shootings and mob violence. Ever-more sensitive data is being hacked at alarming rates, with rival powers unable or unwilling to agree on enforceable norms to avoid cyber conflict and improve cybersecurity. [...]
