US and South Korea Embrace Partnership before North Korea Prowls
South Korea, unbelievably will be stepping up partnership with the US, as North Korea becomes a more emerging threat (after declaring war late last week). Seems like North Korea, recently, has made its intentions known to attack the United States and South Korea. Although it may not seem like a large attack, we must still keep guard.
A news agency in South Korea identified that its defense ministry is planning to increase their forces and attempt to deter any further attacks. A customized deterrence strategy is in the works between the US and South Korea. Therefore, it plans to begin military drills sometime late this Summer (some are thinking August).
It’s hoped that South Korea could also aid as an ally, especially if it means the US has to battle North Korea in the future. Although this is like a small dog yapper trying to intimidate a big dog, a pre-meditated terror plot, like Al-Qaeda, is nothing to sneeze at.
The cyberwar continues to step it up little-by-little, but it seems like things have slowed a bit. Which is never a good sign, usually, because slowing down activity means that they are just meditating on a much bigger or more planned attack, and to take the US by surprise.
Stuxnet Attack on Iran was Illegal? Read more inside…
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) researchers have uncovered a serious reality in the Stuxnet case against Iran (brought on by the US and Israel). NATO’s researchers call it an “act of force”, which was apparently an illegal move.
“Acts that kill or injure persons or destroy or damage objects are unambiguously uses of force” and likely violate international law, according to the Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare, a study produced by international legal experts at the request of NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence in Estonia.
Apparently, it is prohibited, “according to the U.N. charter, the use of force is prohibited, except in self-defense,” says Michael N. Schmitt, a lead author on The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare.
According to the Washington Times, The international group of researchers who wrote the manual were unanimous that Stuxnet — the self-replicating cyberweapon that destroyed Iranian centrifuges that were enriching uranium — was an act of force, said Mr. Schmitt, professor of international law at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I.
Also, the article stated that neither Israel nor the United States has publicly acknowledged being behind Stuxnet, but anonymous U.S. national security officials have told news outlets that the two countries worked together to launch the attack, which set the Iranian nuclear program back as much as two years, according to some estimates.
A manual produced by 20 researchers in NATO, as well as some legal scholars and senior military lawyers, details 300 pages worth of important cybersecurity analysis.
“We wrote it as an aid to legal advisers to governments and militaries, almost a textbook,” Schmitt told the paper. “We wanted to create a product that would be useful to states to help them decide what their position is. We were not making recommendations, we did not define best practice, we did not want to get into policy,” he said.
More detailed investigation is probable in this matter.
Another missing link in Stuxnet Reveals Earlier Infection Time

Stuxnet, the government malware believed to have been created by a dual-venture of the US and Israel, and the one used to attack the Iran nuclear enrichment facility, is now believed to have an earlier attack link. It is believed now that sometime in 2008 was when the facility may have been in progress of attacks from Stuxnet.
Iran leaders met in Kazakhstan this week to discuss with members of the UN Security Council the nuclear program. The researchers there announced a new variant of the sophisticated Stuxnet cyberweapon.
Some have noted that the US and Israel may have partnered way before doing similar activities to try to take down the nuclear enrichment program in Iran.
The new variant was designed as a different attack vector against the centrifuges for the uranium enrichment program, versus later versions released. This “new variant” was apparently released in 2007. Here we are six years later, knowing the discovery of such variant. This shows that the current versions of Stuxnet were made in 2009, which means this variant now recognized predated the original code that researchers found. Therefore, its first version may have been in 2007. That tells security experts this: Stuxnet was attacking much earlier than previously thought.
Still to make a rebuttal, Iran is awaiting and planning new cyberwarriors, which can construct cyberattacks and cyberterrorism on the US.
Looking in the code of the 2007 version, it was used for Siemens PLCs, which are used in the Iran nuclear enrichment program in Natanz. It was aimed at sabotaging the valves’ operations, by controlling the flow of uranium.
The list of new information goes on. According to Wired Magazine, the new finding, described in a paper released by Symantec on Tuesday (.pdf), resolves a number of longstanding mysteries around a part of the attack code that appeared in the 2009 and 2010 variants of Stuxnet but was incomplete in those variants and had been disabled by the attackers.
Feds Requiring All Vehicles to have Black Boxes
Federal regulators are proposing that new automobiles sold in the United States after September 2014 come equipped with black boxes, so-called “event data recorders” that chronicle everything from how fast a vehicle was traveling, the number of passengers and even a car’s location.
While many automakers have voluntarily installed the devices already, the National Transportation Safety Agency wants to hear your comments by February 11 on its proposal mandating them in all vehicles. Congress has empowered the agency to set motor-vehicle-safety rules.
Clearly, regulators’ intentions are about safety, as the devices would trigger — for about 30 seconds — during so-called “events” such as during sudden breaking, acceleration, swerving or other types of driving that might lead to an accident. The data, which can either be downloaded remotely or by a physical connection, depending upon a vehicle’s model, is to be used by manufacturers and regulators “primarily for the purpose of post-crash assessment of vehicle safety system performance,” according to an announcement in the Federal Register. (.pdf)