Since at least 2007,[i] America has been under hidden attack by cyber criminals in Russia. And the attackers have a crucial ally—Vladimir Putin.
Many of the attacks on us we never hear of. For example, there have been 40 cyber-attacks on food companies in the last year alone.[ii] These attacks threaten our national security, something that became obvious Sunday, May 30th, when the computer servers of the world’s biggest meat processing company, JBS, were ground to a halt by hackers.
JBS is more important to your life and mine than you might think. It’s a Brazilian[iii] global meat processing giant that owns the Swift brand, that operates in 15 countries,[iv] that provides a fifth of the world’s meat supply,[v] and that feeds Americans almost a quarter[vi] of our red meat.
The JBS attack shut down five plants in the united states, 47 facilities[vii] in Australia, and one JBS plant in Canada.[viii] Which means that the JBS attack threatened to drive up food prices and to rock your food security and mine.
Then there was the attack May 6th[ix] on America’s biggest gas pipeline, the Colonial pipeline, a pipeline that provides 45% of the fuel to the Eastern USA. There was the attack on the US Agency for International Development, last Thursday,[x] that ordered the agency’s computers to email malware to 3,000 individuals affiliated with organizations for international development, humanitarian aid, and civil rights.[xi]
And there was the Solar Winds hack in late 2019 that allowed Russians[xii] to infiltrate the computers of over 100 companies[xiii] and nine federal agencies, including the department of Defense.[xiv]
These attacks have something in common: Russia.
For example, the attack on the US Agency for International Development appears to have come from a group called Cozy Bear,[xv] run by Russia’s official Foreign Intelligence Service. Cozy Bear was hyperactive in America’s 2016 presidential election.
And the JBS meat attack came from a “Russia-linked” hacker collective called REvil.[xvi]
The current administration saw this coming and issued an executive order May 12th to radically upgrade our cybersecurity.[xvii] But that won’t be easy. Why?
To understand Russia’s campaign of sabotage against us, you have to know two facts. Fact number one. Since at least the 1980s, Russia has been waging a form of warfare against the United States and our allies that the Soviet Union’s infamous spy agency[xviii] the KGB long ago called “active measures.” Active measures means attacking us by means other than bombs and bullets,[xix] attacking us in what the Russians call “political warfare.”[xx] And active measures has taken on a whole new meaning in the cyber age.
Today, active measures means feeding us disinformation, setting us at each other’s throats, attacking our infrastructure, and crippling our government and our military.[xxi]
Then there’s Fact number two: Russia has the biggest mafia in the world. [xxii] It uses its criminal underground as special forces for its army and spy services. [xxiii] The deal goes like this: the Russian Mafia and Russia’s hackers get safe haven as long they attack America and its allies and as long as they advance the goals of Vladimir Putin.
Which means that if push comes to shove, these Russian state-supported cyber criminals can shut down our water, our electricity, our fuel, our food, and our internet. In case of war they can render us paralyzed. So this is not a just a matter of hamburgers, steaks, and a long line at the gas pump. It is a matter of national security. Not to mention a matter of your life and mine.
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Howard Bloom has been called the Einstein, Newton, Darwin, and Freud of the 21st Century by Britain’s Channel 4 TV. The Office of the Secretary of Defense organized a symposium based on one of his seven books, Global Brain, and brought in representatives from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT.
[i] https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/hacking-in-america/timeline-ten-years-russian-cyber-attacks-other-nations-n697111
[ii] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-31/meat-is-latest-cyber-victim-as-hackers-hit-top-supplier-jbs
[iii] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/some-us-meat-plants-stop-operating-after-jbs-cyber-attack-2021-06-01/
[iv] https://ri.jbs.com.br/en/jbs/localizacao-e-areas-de-atuacao/
[v] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-31/meat-is-latest-cyber-victim-as-hackers-hit-top-supplier-jbs
[vi] https://www.agweb.com/news/livestock/beef/us-cattle-slaughter-drops-27000-head-jbs-cyberattack-cripples-largest-beef
[vii] https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/jbs-cyberattack-disrupts-australian-meat-production-78013231, https://www.afr.com/companies/agriculture/cyber-attack-shuts-down-australia-s-biggest-meat-processor-20210531-p57wr2
[viii] https://wjno.iheart.com/content/2021-06-01-cyber-attack-forces-worlds-largest-meat-producer-to-close-five-us-plants/
[ix] https://www.cnet.com/news/colonial-pipeline-post-hack-us-issues-new-cybersecurity-regulations/#:~:text=What%20happened%3F,and%20threatens%20to%20leak%20it.
[x] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/russia-hack-usaid-human-rights-groups/2021/05/28/3e996c42-bfae-11eb-9c90-731aff7d9a0d_story.html
[xi] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/russia-hack-usaid-human-rights-groups/2021/05/28/3e996c42-bfae-11eb-9c90-731aff7d9a0d_story.html
[xii] https://www.npr.org/2021/04/16/985439655/a-worst-nightmare-cyberattack-the-untold-story-of-the-solarwinds-hack
[xiii] https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/18/22288961/solarwinds-hack-100-companies-9-federal-agencies
[xiv] https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/18/22288961/solarwinds-hack-100-companies-9-federal-agencies
[xv]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozy_Bear#:~:text=Cozy%20Bear%2C%20classified%20by%20the,more%20intelligence%20agencies%20of%20Russia.
[xvi] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/02/russian-linked-cybercriminal-group-revil-behind-meatpacker-jbs-attack.html
[xvii] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/05/12/executive-order-on-improving-the-nations-cybersecurity/
[xviii] https://www.jstor.org/stable/26326426?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
[xix] https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/combatting-russian-active-measures
[xx] https://www.jstor.org/stable/26326426?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
[xxi] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/us/politics/russia-hack-nsa-homeland-security-pentagon.html
[xxii] https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2019/12/16/gangs-and-gulags-how-vladimir-putin-utilizes-organized-crime-to-power-his-mafia-state/
[xxiii][xxiii][xxiii] Unger, Craig. House of Trump, House of Putin (pp. 1-2). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.