I was going to comment yesterday about the announcement to be made today concerning Iranian subjects who targeted banks and a New York dam, but I'm glad I waited. This announcement was like a parade of everyone from the top of the Justdice Department on down. It was actually nice that the FBI was able to identify these individuals specifically, down to "name and face" when they are so often just anonymous network names that make a person's reputation. The US can indict these people and put out international warrants for their arrest. This will limit travel they can make to countries friendly to the US. Everyone pretends this will be a new dawn in the cyber world, but know it won't be, anymore than the indictment of Chinese military officers would do that.
We should note that the incidents they are talking about happened in 2012 and 2013. In cyber years, that is an eternity. Those hackers probably found other work by now, or will shortly. There were not very many bank officials who did not know the source of the attacks, which seemed to be Russia at first, but later came back to Iran, though it took a few days. This would have put them on notice four years ago, and most of them probably forgot about it and went on to the next project. What the Justice Department said today was that it was Iran and we know who in Iran. That is important to know, but it also identifies the weaknesses in the ability to do attribution that will stand up in court. It takes a long time. It proves we need to be a lot better at attribution and develop some methods that are court worthy. Faster attribution is at the top of my list because we can't retaliate until we know the source of the attack. State-sponsored terrorism is not a criminal endeavor that can be prosecuted anywhere, though there are exceptions like the trial of Radovan Karadzic who got 40 years yesterday for his barbarism. Those indicted today would not get a sentence that long.
Should we put new sanctions on Iran - Oh, wait, we just did that a couple of weeks ago. Should we take back the billions of dollars we just gave them? Should we stop our business people from going ahead with the plans to help Iran reconstruct? Should we take away their ability to build a nuclear bomb? Those are all good things for another time. Today we can watch the US Department of Justice pretend it did something worthwhile so we can all feel better.
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