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As the article says, every country's security services need to deal with IT security and need skilled professionals to do it, so everyone recruits. They all rec

As the article says, every country's security services need to deal with IT security and need skilled professionals to do it, so everyone recruits. They all recruit naval engineers too. The Russian gov't reputedly recruiting criminals is a story, but only a small part of this one. The Russian government's aggressive recruiting tactics are somewhat of a story, but probably not specific to this segment of the labor market.

gph 10y ago
I think the article would have been more interesting if it probed into why Russia so far appears to be winning at both recruiting talent and utilizing that talent. If Arab Spring is the type of offensive cyberthreat that the U.S. has created, it doesn't seem nearly as effective as the fake hacktivist cyberthreat that Russia has established. But maybe that's just because I have an overly US-centric view.
- linkregister 10y ago
  I appreciated the limited scope of this article. As far as winning the talent wars, I'm not sure if that is what is happening. (Russia has been making use of its talent to fantastic success, however!) Russian efforts have been bolder and focused on political and military objectives. U.S. efforts so far have been for intelligence gathering and the "Stuxnet" Iranian centrifuge sabotage. The recent email phishing hacks required very little technical talent. More impressive Russian activities would be government and corporate network intrusions, which are not detected frequently. That is probably the best comparison with most of U.S. computer network exploitation activity. Involvement in the Arab Spring didn't involve an offensive cyber threat; I'm not sure what you mean. Maybe some NGOs that were CIA-funded were behind some of the Twitter and Facebook posts (I haven't come across any compelling evidence to suggest they were, but I will allow for the possibility), but I wouldn't consider that an offensive cyber threat.
  - gph 10y ago
    http://drshem.com/2012/11/15/cyberwarfare-and-hacktivism-in-the-middle-east/ http://drshem.com/2012/11/15/cyberwarfare-and-hacktivism-in-... I guess the Arab Spring hacktivism didn't really amount to much, and the links to the U.S. on it are extremely tenuous, so I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it. But if those attempts were backed in some way by the U.S., they were definitely a pathetic attempt compared to what Russia has been doing. That said, you are likely right about America having the capability, but up to this point simply haven't had the desire or boldness to go as far as the Russians. Will be interesting to see if we do sink to their level, probably be a whole lot of leaked emails and internal memos if so.

gph 10y ago

I think the article would have been more interesting if it probed into why Russia so far appears to be winning at both recruiting talent and utilizing that talent. If Arab Spring is the type of offensive cyberthreat that the U.S. has created, it doesn't seem nearly as effective as the fake hacktivist cyberthreat that Russia has established. But maybe that's just because I have an overly US-centric view.

linkregister 10y ago
I appreciated the limited scope of this article. As far as winning the talent wars, I'm not sure if that is what is happening. (Russia has been making use of its talent to fantastic success, however!) Russian efforts have been bolder and focused on political and military objectives. U.S. efforts so far have been for intelligence gathering and the "Stuxnet" Iranian centrifuge sabotage. The recent email phishing hacks required very little technical talent. More impressive Russian activities would be government and corporate network intrusions, which are not detected frequently. That is probably the best comparison with most of U.S. computer network exploitation activity. Involvement in the Arab Spring didn't involve an offensive cyber threat; I'm not sure what you mean. Maybe some NGOs that were CIA-funded were behind some of the Twitter and Facebook posts (I haven't come across any compelling evidence to suggest they were, but I will allow for the possibility), but I wouldn't consider that an offensive cyber threat.
- gph 10y ago
  http://drshem.com/2012/11/15/cyberwarfare-and-hacktivism-in-the-middle-east/ http://drshem.com/2012/11/15/cyberwarfare-and-hacktivism-in-... I guess the Arab Spring hacktivism didn't really amount to much, and the links to the U.S. on it are extremely tenuous, so I probably shouldn't have even mentioned it. But if those attempts were backed in some way by the U.S., they were definitely a pathetic attempt compared to what Russia has been doing. That said, you are likely right about America having the capability, but up to this point simply haven't had the desire or boldness to go as far as the Russians. Will be interesting to see if we do sink to their level, probably be a whole lot of leaked emails and internal memos if so.