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Australia says it's under nation-state cyberattack

104 points| CalmStorm | 5 years ago |thecyberwire.com | reply

78 comments

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[+] dicomdan|5 years ago|reply
Should the international laws be amended to consider state-led cyber attacks an act of war in additional to traditional aggression? Seems like UN Security Council should deal with these matters.
[+] caymanjim|5 years ago|reply
International law barely exists and is unenforceable. If a superpower--especially a permanent Security Council member--wants to do something, there's absolutely no recourse. Look at Russia and Crimea. That's the most egregious violation of the notion of international law in recent history, and nothing of consequence happened. The big powers can do whatever they want, and the worst response will be token economic sanctions. China is so economically intertwined with the world that nothing at all would happen unless they nuked someone.
[+] gpm|5 years ago|reply
I thought cyber attacks generally were considered acts of war.

But what are you going to do about it? Start shooting in China's general direction?

[+] Kinrany|5 years ago|reply
It's probably best to consider them a new kind of attack. As long as they don't kill people directly, they are closer to economic wars.
[+] riffraff|5 years ago|reply
What would the UN do with this? Quite a few wars in recent memory involved members of the security council, and the same would likely apply to cyberwarfare.
[+] bawolff|5 years ago|reply
Given the details, it might be a nation state, it might be some bored teenager.

People are constantly claiming to be attacked by nation states to hide their incompetence (nobody ever gets blamed that they failed to deter "China")

[+] yumraj|5 years ago|reply
Just cut the undersea cables from China, there has to be a time when the world says enough is enough
[+] trabant00|5 years ago|reply
What a low effort article. Zero details. And the page is in huge part advertising and unrelated stuff.
[+] ve55|5 years ago|reply
Just as covid seemed to hit many with little warning and little preparation, serious cyberattacks will at some point too.

Nations need to have more preparation, funding, and simulations, for potential large future cyberattacks before one causes significant destruction.

[+] cheez|5 years ago|reply
They simulate all of them, still screw it up when it happens. 9/11 was simulated, pandemic was simulated, etc.
[+] wallacoloo|5 years ago|reply
So the attacker is using “open-source code exploits” followed by phishing. To what effect? DoS of govt services? Ransoms? Something more ambitious?
[+] yumraj|5 years ago|reply
China is going rogue again. Cyberattacks against Australia, bullying in South China Sea, border fights against India and so on.

We need a unified world approach.

[+] nix23|5 years ago|reply
Can you please give me a proof that it's China and not someone else...or nothing at all?

I always hear cyber-attack's from Russia, North Korea or China, but never from Israel or the US, are they just so bad in covering up or is maybe something else behind it?

[+] adventured|5 years ago|reply
Not just cyber attack, Australia is also under economic attack [1] for the same reason. And China just suddenly decided to sentence an Australian to death (same move they made against Canada), after five years of sitting on the case [2]. It's all about intimidation and leverage. China will press until Australia capitulates. Fortunately the Australians have backbone.

As a superpower capable of standing off with China, the US should be stepping in and offering very public political and economic support to Australia. It's the only approach that will work when dealing with China's new era of extreme belligerence. If the US were currently being led by a wiser politician, they would be rallying allies old and new (such as India) at China's expense.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/21/austr...

[2] https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/13/china/australian-drug-smuggli...

[+] _bxg1|5 years ago|reply
And instead our commander in chief prefers to insult allies old and new on Twitter
[+] fit2rule|5 years ago|reply
Why is it the US' problem? If AUSTRALIA were currently being led by a wiser politician, or indeed had in the last .. 20 years .. been led by wise politicians .. it wouldn't be in this mess right now in the first place.

Its only because Australia kowtows with fluidity every time the US snaps its fingers that its in this mess right now. Australians need to stop being the lapdogs to the American empire, and start thinking about their own future. Australias future isn't white American: it is multi-cultural and mostly Asian.

[+] microcolonel|5 years ago|reply
Every time PRC turns up the heat, we should get closer with Taiwan.
[+] m0zg|5 years ago|reply
I'm old enough to remember everyone here shitting on Trump for suggesting Huawei 5G is a national security threat. This opinion is now so uncontroversial that even Eric Schmidt agrees: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2020/06/18/huawei-pos...
[+] dane-pgp|5 years ago|reply
> everyone here

That's an interesting claim to test, actually. Could you provide links to one or more discussions on this site where the overwhelming consensus was that Huawei 5G would not be a national security threat to the US?

[+] AngeloAnolin|5 years ago|reply
I am pretty sure that nations with the resources are pretty much doing some stealth cyber attack to nations they consider a threat - whether by economic or defence policies.

Likely the scale of the attack happening is something that may have surprised the victim nation that they are calling out the attacks in the hope that it would at least calm down the intruder or even have the government intervene.

On a side note, reading the article in a mobile device was a big PITA. Lots of ads and unnecessary information included. And they had the temerity to tell me that I am using n/3 free articles. I think I would pass from subscribing if on the limited free version and the reading experience was just worst.