Sadly, as a general rule, most of the World's corporations only care about profits.... a "greed is good" philosophy. However, some of the most socially conscious and employee-friendly Corporations also have high profitability. There was even an ETF put together from these types of Corporations.

Poland chose where its interests lay a long time ago, and has been a full member of Nato sinc 1999.
Switzerland has never been a member or applied to join NATO.

Irony is ironic...

The way I understand it, Poland had been becoming/leaning authoritarian in the past year, but after Russia attacked the Ukraine, public sentiment in Poland and their President (or Prime Minister) made the shift quickly away from Russia towards the West. A lot of that has to do with the superior PR campaign and work put in by President Zelenskyy and the obvious videos about Russian atrocities - also there is a David vs Goliath concept here.
........That was MY point. I don't care who is OFFICIALLY in NATO. It is about the need for all countries around the world HAVING TO CHOOSE a side. Hungary for example is officially in NATO, but after the recent (tainted) election, Viktor Orban seems to be heading back to his Dictatorial roots and he will favor Russia. This will present a problem for NATO in the future. That was MY point about choosing!
.........I will have to check about Switzerland, but there has been something in the news about their applying for NATO membership. Stay tuned!

Ireland and Austria are definitely looking into NATO membership. Switzerland wants to remain OFFICIALLY neutral, but has many and many increasing military involvements with NATO. Like I said.......the Ukrainian war is causing/forcing many changes.....causing many countries to pick one side or another. As of right now the US has picked and is ALL IN for the Ukraine.

1. That list dates back to June of last year.
2. The list is of the types of infrastructure that Russia needed to consider "off limits" with regards to cybersecurity.
3. Seems some folks here have forgotten that one time back in band camp, when cybercriminals attacked the country by shutting down one of the existing pipelines, causing gas shortages and creating panic-buying all along the coast.
4. Other cyberattacks were aimed at the Ukranian power grid and a Saudi petrochemical plant.

It's a thing. It's a problem, and it absolutely warrants our President telling Russia not to do that. And sure - even spelling it out in a list of "what not to do" to make sure there's no misunderstanding.

OR....

It was an instruction guide of what they should do to screw with us... Potato, Po-tah-to...

Misunderstandings and bad luck have started wars in the past. There was that incident where Gorbachov's generals were misinterpreting their own radar problems as a preemptive launch of missiles by the US. They advised Gorby to launch their Russian missiles for revenge and a 3rd world war. Fortunately, Gorby kept a cool head and a 3rd world war was averted. But, historically, that was a close call !
........Today, we are on a knife's edge.....again.....depending on some KGB strongman to not lose his mind.

It does feel the world is ramping up. I guess the question is, just how crazy is Putin, and will one of his own decide to take him out before he does something really stupid.

And the old saying goes, "I don't know how WWIII will be fought, but WW IV will be fought with stick and stones."

Maybe it is just another fear-porn psyop broadcasted on the mass psychosis box.
War propaganda is almost comical. When will Putin bomb a baby milk factory?

I wasn't arguing about your 'MY point' or disputing your opinion.
Just replying that both your previous statements regarding Poland and Switzerland were wrong.
That was 'MY point in posting.

The sky is falling!!
 

Ever heard of M.A.D. or Mutually Assured Destruction? The annihilation of millions of Americans (and innocent Russians) would be the result of a war with Russia. Total collapse of both countries (if not the entire world). What a great idea; lets go to war with Russia for trying to hack our systems even though we have been doing the same to them. Go back to your bunker Chicken Little!

Maybe, but i also think that this an eggageration as I currently work at a multiple product utility, electric (generation, transmission and distribution) and gas (transmission and distribution) and stating we are late to the game would imply that there have been multiple outages due to cyber attacks, and I have yet to read about many cyber outages in the CNI (critical national infrastructure). There is actually more risk in physical attacks now than cyber attacks. . .

There are several grids in the US, if you are retired for more than 5-10 years, am thinking that you have missed a lot of continued improvements and upgrades, etc. I know that the PG&E sucked with their use of rate tariffs to adequately cover their physical risks, but most companies are continuously upgrading their cyber defenses. We have tripled our budgets in the last 5 years, and are constantly reducing risk entries. The Columbia gas pipeline explosions were due to failed reactions to over pressurization alerts, and they lost their license to operation in MA. But not a cyber attack.

So i am thinking that you are suffering from retirement memories of the old days, since being out of touch with the current working world advances, which are continuous and hidden from everyday retirement life. Oh I so wish I could be retired to get rid of all this working crap. . and forget about my now irrelevant operational finance career.

So yes, when the increased attacks happen, which have been on going since the beginning of March, internally non cni we have occasional connectivity issues, and slow latency, but nothing has been threatening the CNI any more than any other day.

still working IT guy,
though going back to finance / database dba / regulatory reporting support guy at work

I think that US PEOPLE and Russian PEOPLE could exist nicely together as long as both countries could be free of a Dictator or autocratic tendencies......and I do mean both countries!

I fail to understand the point of such statements. There are VAGUE allusions to some.........whatever???? is the main point of the paragraph/series of statements?

Excuse me, how did we get from the government sending out alerts to companies to check for this particular type or hacking, to declaring war on Russia?

If Russia attacks the US what is your recommendation? Learn Russian?

To me, it did NOT seem like a clarifying reply. It seemed more like an attack and a delighted finding of fault with another person's post. In addition to a non-comment or opinion on the main point of MY post.
.......When anyone writes a reply of more than 5 or 6 sentences. There is always someone that will "pull out" a small detail and declare that a small detail of near-zero IMPORTANCE somehow nullifies the main argument of a post. Maybe it is human nature.....a dark human nature.

I am not a history person, but (there is always a but) it seems to me that all wars are wars of rich powerful people that the young, poor and powerless are sent to fight and die in so that the rich and powerful person can become more rich and powerful. I will go a step further and say the rich and powerful person is typically a sociopath, which has no emotional connection to other people, and so looks at loss of life in war as a "cost of doing business" and is only considered for how it impacts their personal wealth or power.

The first step in most wars is for "the people" to be convinced the other side are evil demons out to destroy "the people", and so "the people" must defend themselves (and their children) by taking action.

Remember when WE invaded Iraq, all the fear mongering and the online campaign to make Hussain out to be evil incarnate. They forgot to mention WE trained him, WE funded his rise to power, WE supplied him with the weapons he needed. WE stoked the fire, and then had to go to war with him because he got out of control. And who paid the price, hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and many American soldiers. And the rich and powerful (corporations) made over $3 Trillion supplying the war machine, while our infrastructure feel apart.

Putin, in my not so humble opinion is a sociopath. He is following the same script, "He has to purge the NAZIs threatening mother Russia!" Most autocrats are sociopaths - approximately 5% of the worlds population are sociopath - 15 million Americans or 1 out of every 20 of your neighbors are.

It is more likely for a sociopath to gain positions of power and wealth because they do not play by rules, since rules do not apply to them. However, most powerful sociopaths are rich and powerful because they are very good at manipulating people. They are often surrounded by a cult following. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT ANY PARTICULAR LEADER. I am talking about Jones, Putin, Hitler, Mussolini, etc. etc. etc.

To the point of your post. I firmly believe that "people" all would more or less get along fine without the sociopaths pushing misinformation. Most people want to raise their families. Make the world a better place for their kids. Keep their kids healthy and safe. Most people don't REALLY care what form of government they live under, as long as it leaves them alone to do what they want. It is the leaders that have to stir the pot, get people mad at other people.

Tell me about it - LOL! I tend to ramble on and on. And boy do people like finding some little detail (typo even) to pull out and rant over. Oh well, there are a few that want to actually discuss things and not just shout their dog whistles. I just need to learn to better control my "temper" and ignore those.

An interesting post. Thought-provoking. KUDOS!

Why does the phrase "Pot, meet Kettle" come to mind?

You made a post, the main content of which was wrong, and to have that fact pointed out is an attack?
How precious are you?

Thank you Dr. Strangelove!
 

"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb". - 1964 Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Sterling Hayden as Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper has to be you all over! Check it out! Lets bomb those Russkies back to the stone age!

the "so what" people on this thread need to watch 60 Minutes tonight.

If they are able to watch 60 minutes tonight then either the attack is not underway or it has not been very successful.

The advisory says there is evidence of tools being developed and/or tested and provides steps that affected industry partners need to take. For those partners, action needs to be taken. Bad things could happen but I'll bet our side will be prepared.

Thank you very much. That was very informative. I did not retire from APS, I was a consultant with them for a while. I was working for them when 911 happened. I worked on several infrastructure related projects including some database projects for Palo Verde. One of the projects I was assigned was a project to upgrade substation communications to have redundant communications paths. This was to protect against potential physical attacks, and my understanding was they were doing it as a result of Congressional mandate to all electrical producers. I can't really say much more about it, since I was a contractor with confidentiality requirements.

Even back then there were multiple grids - yes - but, are you saying there are redundant national grids now? Because that was discussed when I was there, but was thought to be too expensive to be practical? The proposal that was gaining favor was distributed generation. But, the technology for that was not practical at the time.

And yes, I am certain there have been a LOT of improvement since then - that was 20 years ago, a few things have changed - LOL!

I am glad to hear we are taking it more seriously now compared to then.

I assume you read the CISA alert I linked to, and understand it was sent out to companies to alert them to a new cyber attack software that has been detected and to give them information on how to identify if they had been attacked and how to deal with it. It does not say we have been attacked, it says the software has been identified as having been "tested" against several locations.

Anyway, thank you again for bringing us more up to date than my out dated experience.

I completely agree, those partners need to take action, and I am sure they will. And yes, bad things happen in wars. And I also think we will be prepared.

My point, as I have said, was not to fear monger, or say the world is ending, just to let people be aware of things that are going on - most people are never aware of the world of Cyberwarfare. I find it interesting, having been involve in some of it tangentially. I thought people here might like to know what is happening and how our government is protecting us.

I have no idea what you are going on about, but have a nice day.

So did you actually watch the 60 Minutes piece? Your first sentence leads me to believe you did not.

My first sentence, referring to the show that would air later in the day, led you to believe that I had not watched the show that had not aired yet?

But no, I do not watch network television. What insights did the piece have?

EDIT: Even more confused by your remark now. I read what seems to be the transcript for the program. The transcript talks about indications and warning and planning but no attack against the US yet. That seems to support my first sentence that, "If they are able to watch 60 minutes tonight then either the attack is not underway or it has not been very successful." What am I missing?

From an internal email about cyber attack training yesterday
 

Just to give everyone comfort as to training at utilities, we actually see demos of actual software used in phishing attacks against us, as well as study other attack vectors from actual attacks. . .


it guy wanting to leave it

Sounds good, glad to hear it seems to be taken seriously. I expect it is not a question of IF we will be attacked, but when. With sufficient training and preparation I have no doubt we will survive it. Sounds like you have some interesting experience, I am a bit sad I am a bit over the hill for Cyberwarfare work, it would intrigue me.

I keep a sandboxed system on my desk setup as a honey pot and occasionally catch something interesting. But, I don't have the time to mess with it much anymore.

Martin,

enjoy retirement, I realize that workaholics like myself want to continue to feel relevant in today's world, but in reality, time is better served enjoying what TV and the rest of our lives have to offer,

and don't click on any links which you don't know, and don't answer random phone calls which are not on your contacts lists. . . and use linux mint if instead of windows O/S to minimize the potential viruses and other attacks. .

I am converting over as soon as I have the time.

laptop safety officer