Our picksBorder Wall Rethinking | Disrupting the Wildfire Ecosystem | Russia’s New Form of Organized Crime, and more

Published 9 August 2021

·  Russia’s New Form of Organized Crime Is Menacing the World

·  IPCC Finds the World is Heating Faster Than Previously Thought

·  The IPCC Delivers Its Starkest Warning About the World’s Climate

·  North Korea Developing Nuclear, Missile Programs in 2021, UN Says

·  Disrupting the Wildfire Ecosystem to Solve Our Nation’s Battle with Fire

·  How the Energy Department Can Improve Industry Cybersecurity

·  The Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Gang Is Back under a New Name

·  Ransomware Gangs and the Name Game Distraction

·  If China and the U.S. Claim the Same Moon-Base Site, Who Wins?

·  How Trump Stiff-Armed Congress — and Gaslighted the Courts — to Build His Wall

Russia’s New Form of Organized Crime Is Menacing the World  (Editorial Board, New York Times)

·  “In about a dozen years, ransomware has emerged as a major cyberproblem of our time, big enough for President Biden to put it at the top of his agenda with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, when they met in June and for lawmakers in Congress to be working on several bills that would, among other things, require victims to report attacks to the government.”

·  “It is a war that needs to be fought, and won. While the extortion business is run by a relatively small network of criminals seeking windfall profits, their ability to seriously disrupt economies and to breach strategically critical enterprises or agencies also makes them a formidable potential threat to national security. The Colonial Pipeline attack created an almost instant shortage of fuel and spread panic in the southeastern United States.”

·  “Whatever the true scope, the problem will not be solved with patches, antivirus software or two-factor authentication, though security experts stress that every bit of protection helps. … The battle must be joined elsewhere, and the place to start is Russia. That, according to the experts, is where the majority of attacks originate. Three other countries—China, Iran and North Korea—are also serious players, and the obvious commonality is that all are autocracies whose security apparatuses doubtlessly know full well who the hackers are and could shut them down in a minute. So the presumption is that the criminals are protected, either through bribes … or by doing pro bono work for the government or both.”

·  “Drawing red lines for Russia does not usually work. The message would best be delivered privately, so that Mr. Putin would not be challenged to publicly back down before the United States. It is possible that Mr. Biden has already delivered such a message. If so, he should be prepared to follow through.”

·  “Mounting a multifront attack against ransomware will take time and effort. … But letting Russian hackers continue to wreak havoc on America’s and the world’s digital infrastructure with impunity is an immediate and critical challenge. If this is not stopped soon, further escalation—and the growth of organized cybercrime syndicates in other dictatorships—is all but certain.”