(Not)Petya Malware ,“An Act Of War”, Requiring a NATO Response?

Guess which state this malware has been attributed to?If you said Israel, you’re wrong!And yah Trudeau intentionally played the divisive identity politics game, right on Canada day.He forgot Alberta, intentionally. His PR team , and Justin Trudough, are way to savvy for that to have been anything but intentional!  What else would one expect from him? His job is to destroy Canada. When he won I predicted he would be divisive and promote PC insanity, he's not disappointed me at all!

 Trudeau will divide this country, same as Harper did, just in a different manner.

We will suffocate under political correctness. We already did under Harper, but, it will get so much worse under Trudeau. Free speech will be further restricted

 The guy is sickening On to the malware........... Independent

Ukraine has accused Russian security services of being behind a major cyber attack that crippled operations around the world earlier this week.The Eastern European country said its security service, the SBU, has determined that the attack, which appeared to begin in Ukraine before spreading across the globe on Tuesday, was orchestrated by the same hackers who attacked the Ukrainian power grid in December 2016.“The available data, including those obtained in cooperation with international antivirus companies, give us reason to believe that the same hacking groups are involved in the attacks, which in December 2016 attacked the financial system, transport and energy facilities of Ukraine using TeleBots and BlackEnergy,” the SBU said in a statement.

LinkLink

On Saturday, Kevin Scheid, a Department of Defense veteran, was placed in charge of NATO’s cyber operations. The appointment wouldn’t be big news if it weren’t for the fact that he’s joining the organization at a hair-raising point in history. The vicious malware triggered NATO to announce on Friday that the attack is believed to be the work of a state actor and is a potential act of war.There was a lot of ruckus back in May when Donald Trump met with the leaders of NATO and failed to confirm that the US is committed to Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. That’s the clause of the agreement that pledges the members of NATO to mutual defense. Legally speaking, if Article 5 is triggered by an attack on one member, the other members are required to join in retaliation. NATO’s Secretary General confirmed this week that a cyber operation with “consequences comparable to an armed attack can trigger Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and responses might be with military means.” But Friday’s press release emphasizes that we don’t know enough about the origin of NotPetya or the intentions behind its release at this time.NATO researchers have concluded that the malware “can most likely be attributed to a state actor,” and if a nation is determined to be responsible, “this could be an internationally wrongful act, which might give the targeted states several options to respond with countermeasures.” What sort of countermeasures? Well, pretty much anything. Independently, the UK’s defense secretary announced this week that his country was prepared to respond to cyber attacks “from any domain - air, land, sea or cyber.”NATO functions on strict rules. Tomáš Minárik, a researcher at NATO CCD COE writes:

NATO functions on "strict rules" Sure, just ask Turkey about US adherence to NATO rules. 

    If the operation could be linked to an ongoing international armed conflict, then law of armed conflict would apply, at least to the extent that injury or physical damage was caused by it, and with respect to possible direct participation in hostilities by civilian hackers, but so far there are reports of neither.Minárik is outlining what would justify full on IRL military conflict. That doesn’t, necessarily, mean that NATO couldn’t respond in the cyber-realm if it determined that a government was responsible for NotPetya. He continues:    As important government systems have been targeted, then in case the operation is attributed to a state this could count as a violation of sovereignty. Consequently, this could be an internationally wrongful act, which might give the targeted states several options to respond with countermeasures.Petya spreads from Europe to AsiaThe latest threat in cyberspace, dubbed as “Petya” has spread to Asia after targeting businesses and organizations in Europe, a security firm said on Friday.“We see that cyber attackers are compromising businesses and individuals in Asia with continued success. While the threat may have started in Eastern Europe, it has quickly spread across the world within a short time,” Symantec Corporation told The Manila Times in an email.