For years on this page I have discussed the risk of cyberattacks or cyberwar. But it you want a list of bad actors ready, willing and able to attack the homeland via cyberattacks, you need not look any further than this website.
Way back on May 30, 2007 I discussed Russia’s distributed denial-of-service attack on Estonia which forced Estonia’s biggest bank to shut down its online service temporarily, which bank suffered losses of at least $1,000,000. See https://www.chicagotrademarkattorney.net/cyberwar/
On April 15, 2010 I discussed China’s work in the cyber field and, quoting James Fallows from The Atlantic, I wrote, “China may not be our biggest cyberwar threat. Quoting a former diplomat who worked on security and intelligence issues, that former official stated that our #1 electronic threat was Russia, #2 was the Israelis, who are looking for political advantage, tied with the Israelis is China, but the French, who are looking for economic advantage, and the Brazilians, who are involved in financial crime, are also countries to be concerned about.” See https://www.chicagotrademarkattorney.net/cyberwar-cont/
On August 27, 2013 in a piece entitled, “Asymetric Warfare, Cyberwar & The Blowback” See https://www.chicagotrademarkattorney.net/asymmetric-warfare-cyberwar-the-blowback/ I wrote that, “a group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army, an online group that supports Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, has claimed responsibility for taking down the New York Times website.” See http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/new-york-times-hacked-syrian-electronic-army-suspected-8C11016739
So, now we got the Russians, Chinese, the Israelis and even the Syrians posing a threat to the systems that we rely on for banking, trading, shopping, streaming as well as our national security and, earlier this month, as tensions ramped up between the U.S. and Iran, in a tweet I added the Islamic Republic to the list. See http://www.smartbrief.com/branded/8F5F957D-57FD-4533-BD54-E4386ED388CE/341EDE63-BB94-4D8F-A44F-D243D3030A13
On January 27th of this year I received the following list of attempted attacks on this website:
Top 10 IPs Blocked
| IP | Country | Block Count |
|---|---|---|
91.122.30.68 | Russian Federation | 4 |
5.202.47.92 | Iran, Islamic Republic of | 2 |
64.225.9.108 | United States | 2 |
47.103.106.39 | China | 1 |
194.143.251.120 | Hungary | 1 |
182.148.92.5 | China | 1 |
115.239.27.152 | China | 1 |
45.186.163.2 | (Unknown) | 1 |
113.103.117.8 | China | 1 |
36.22.76.89 | China | 1 |
Top 10 Countries Blocked
| Country | Total IPs Blocked | Block Count |
|---|---|---|
| China | 81 | 81 |
| Russian Federation | 3 | 6 |
| United States | 2 | 3 |
| Vietnam | 2 | 2 |
| Turkey | 2 | 2 |
| Iran, Islamic Republic of | 1 | 2 |
| Germany | 1 | 1 |
| Canada | 1 | 1 |
| Hungary | 1 | 1 |
| (Unknown) | 1 | 1 |
Of 15 IP addresses blocked, four were from Russia, two were from the Islamic Republic of Iran and five were from China. The vast majority of attempts to hack this site came from the People’s Republic of China. So, to learn who our biggest cyber threats are as a nation I need not look any further than who my biggest cyber threats are as a website owner. Apparently, they’re one and the same and if I’m a target you may be one too.
