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What do defrosting refrigerators, a record cryptocurrency heist, bomb threats targeting airlines and newsrooms, and Ukraine’s emergency alert app sending out a fake nuclear strike alert have in common?
They are “just the foothills” of a new hacking landscape, according to the head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre. “There are so many vulnerabilities out there,” said NCSC CEO Richard Horne, referring to flaws in IT systems exposed by AI technology, that “you could say are waiting to be exploited”.
What did the commentators say?
It is not yet clear who is exploiting these new-found weaknesses and why but there are “two factors underpinning the NCSC warnings: geopolitics and AI”, said Dan Milmo and Aisha Down in The Guardian.
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North Korea has been widely blamed for October’s hack that stole a record £4.7 billion from Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, while cybersecurity experts have said last week’s Europe-wide fridge attacks bear the hallmarks of Russia.
If Russia were responsible, such attacks could be intended to demonstrate the costs of Europe’s continued support for Ukraine, said Sidharth Kaushal, from the RUSI think tank. “I think it’s more about cost imposition,” he told CNBC. “Convincing the European political leadership that the costs of a war can come home to them.”
Others have pinned the blame on criminal gangs or even enterprising teenagers testing the boundaries of what is possible with AI.
“Whether nuisances or true threats, the events collectively highlighted Europe’s vulnerability in a digitally connected era,” said Adam Goldman in The New York Times. The “mix of disarray and upheaval” in recent months has “left European officials rushing to identify culprits and residents inconvenienced, confused or fearful”.
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“Psychological destabilisation has been achieved,” said Ciaran Martin, former CEO of the NCSC. “At a time western Europeans have enough things to worry about, now they are getting news that they might go into the supermarket for a convenient meal on a busy day and find that it has melted. It does feed into that insecurity.”
What next?
With cyber disruption becoming the new norm, private firms and governments are racing to protect themselves, their users and citizens.
Yet countries’ abilities to withstand hybrid threats vary substantially across the continent, said Kaushal. “As one goes further west in Europe, the level of preparation, both against hybrid attacks, but also just simple missile attacks of the kind that we’ve seen in Ukraine, is far less great.”
The UK is belatedly trying to catch up. The Times has reported that UK defence chiefs have begun deploying “hunt forces” abroad to disrupt enemy hackers who are preparing to cripple Britain’s military systems.
“The threat continues to increase in both its complexity and its persistence,” said Major General Mike Fayers, commander of the MoD’s Defence Cyber and Electromagnetic Force. So “we have a responsibility as citizens, armed forces and the private sector to make sure we are as prepared as possible from the boardroom to the router at home”.
