We talked a few weeks back about tests facing the new administration. It’s not only happening as predicted – it’s also growing in boldness. There are literally dozens of these tests now happening all over the world that were flat-out not happening to this extent just 6 months ago. Reasoning can be simply speculated as: Those bad actors were concerned over consequences in the recent past…
Apparently not anymore.
Let’s take a quick tour around just some – nowhere near all – of the tests that are forming up. Starting with 2021 cyber attacks:
- The Colonial Pipeline attack. Shutting down fuel supplies to 40% of the East Coast for over a week
- The Channel Nine attack in Australia that shut down that major network for at least a day
- The Harris Federation schools (over 50 of them) in the UK, shortly following another attack on the University of Northampton
- The CNA Insurance attack that shut them down for at least 3 days (irony: They specialize in Cyber Insurance)
- The attack and partially successful attempt to poison a Florida city water system (Oldsmar, FL), via cyber attack (it did increase sodium hydroxide to dangerous levels in the water for a time)
- The Microsoft Exchange attack that crippled comms in 9 government agencies and over 60,000 companies
- Bombardier Aircraft data breach that exposed confidential data on hundreds of suppliers, customers, and employees
- Acer Computers – a record $50M ransomware attack
- The University of the Highlands and Islands cyber attack that forced the closing of 13 campuses and research centers for at least a day
- The attack on an airline reservation platform that crashed reservations capabilities for 20 global airlines
- The Sierra Wireless attack on IOT manufacturing, shutting them down for almost a week
- The security software firm Accellion (who’s customers include Australian Securities and Investments Commission, Kroger foods, and the University of Colorado, etc.)
- The JBS Meat Packing attack. Shutting down 9 plants for the 5th largest meat supplier in the world.
- The MTA and Ferry Service attacks that suspended services for a short period
The pace and severity of these attacks are growing rapidly in the last several months, and thus far no publicized response has been made available.
What else has been happening to test the new administration? Perhaps the Iranian increased Gulf provocations of shipping and US warships, causing at least 3 recent incidents of US warships firing warning shots at aggressive Iranian gunboats (not 1 or 2 shots, but up to 30 in some cases). But now Iran is also caught on satellite sending arms to Venezuela. The latest, a shipment of fast attack boats on board a cargo ship bound for that nation. The same ones we are seeing being menacing and aggressive in the Gulf. Now they’ll be in the Caribbean. This, all while Biden’s team is trying to “lure” Iran back to the table to rejoin the JCPOA.
North Korea has resumed both Long-Range Intercontinental and Short-Range Missile Testing. They haven’t performed ICBM testing since 2017… Biden’s comments on the launches: “It’s nothing new”. Actually, it is. The short-range tests aren’t banned and have been ongoing; the ICBMs are banned under UNSCR 1718.
Let’s not forget that, just a week before the June Biden-Putin summit in Switzerland, Russia has announced it will again locate and maintain thousands of troops in southwestern Russia… over 100,000 of them, actually. That’s the Ukraine border, FYI.
But why stop there? After Biden refused to enforce the congressionally-mandated sanctions on the Nord Stream II pipeline (now allowing Euro dependence on Russian gas and not US gas), among other head-scratcher moves, he has now revoked the permit for Delta Crescent Energy to partner with Sunni and Kurdish interests to develop oil in northeastern Syria, in a partnership that benefited the local economy and was designed to be a deterrent for ISIS revival. Yes, Trump authorized this before, and the DCE owners were political contributors, but the work they did with the locals in Syria was actually paying off and the US was seen as a great partner. Now this partnership will dissolve, and the only party left standing in the room? Russia.
