A worldwide undersea gold rush is coming

An undersea gold rush could be coming soon with the rising cost of minerals and advancements in technology opening the seafloor to mining – environmental concerns not withstanding.

The United Nations International Seabed Authority (ISA) last week published a study on what frameworks would be necessary to ensure that mining is done responsibly. Commercial mining operations could begin as soon as 2016, but ISA acknowledged that there will be “inevitable environmental damage” and identified a “Catch-22″ where firms have not demonstrated appropriate competency and skills but must first start mining to gain them.

Chinese hackers caught trying to steal secrets of our new stealth fighter as tens of thousands of cyber attacks are launched on jet manufacturer every week

• Lockheed Martin said it was being targeted by hackers from China
• Company is building new Joint Strike Fighter which is ‘invisible’ on radar
• Team of ‘young geeks’ battling against cyber attacks at British base

Chinese cyber spies have been caught trying to steal the secrets of Britain’s most sophisticated combat jet, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

A covert unit within the Chinese Army has been using highly sophisticated cyber weapons in a desperate attempt to acquire classified information about the stealthy Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

Manufacturer Lockheed Martin claims it is thwarting tens of thousands of computer attacks every week to keep secure secrets about the jet – due to be in service with the Royal Navy and RAF by 2018.

@AP Hijack Exposes Precarious Economy

At times, after reading such books as “Spetsnaz. The Story Behind the Soviet SAS“, it makes you wonder if someone hasn’t taken an idea out of the playbook – just replace cassettes with modern technology.

A hacked Associated Press Twitter account disseminated a bogus breaking news tweet last Tuesday about two explosions at the White House that injured the U.S. president. The nature and content of the tweet not only instilled panic in thousands of the nearly 2 million followers of Associated Press’s @AP Twitter account, it also triggered definite alarm in the financial markets, causing the Dow Jones Industrial Average to tumble 143 points in just two minutes.

People have become heavily reliant on technology, even if that technology disseminates unconfirmed information.

DoD: U.S. War Machine Vulnerable to EMP Event

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Defense will be hard-pressed to respond in any meaningful way to a catastrophic failure of the civilian electric grid infrastructure due to an electromagnetic pulse event, whether natural or man-made, according to a little publicized study.

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“Preparing for months without a commercial source of clean water (city water pressure is often dependent on electric pumping to storage towers) and stoppage of sewage treatment facilities will require net methods of survival particularly in populated areas,” according to the little known May 2011 military study put out by the U.S. Army War College.

Cyber-attackers penetrate Reserve Bank networks

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s computer networks have been repeatedly and successfully hacked in a series of cyber-attacks to infiltrate sensitive internal information, including by ­Chinese-developed malicious software.

The RBA is sufficiently concerned about these risks that it has had a private security firm carry out “penetration testing”, or authorised hacking, of its computer networks to assess the integrity of its digital defences.

Chinese hackers have hit every Washington network, intel says

Chinese hackers have hit nearly every Washington institution, according to unnamed intelligence officials.

“The dark secret is there is no such thing as a secure unclassified network,” one said in a Newser report. “Law firms, think tanks, newspapers. If there’s something of interest, you should assume you’ve been penetrated.”

Obama’s Cyber Dodge – White House cyber report won’t focus on China

The Obama administration plan to counter massive cyber espionage from China will not focus on a single country, a White House official said.

The administration is set to release its “Strategy to Mitigate the Theft of U.S. Trade Secrets” at a press conference of senior officials, including Attorney General Eric Holder.

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“This strategy is not focused on any one country nor is it focused on cybersecurity exclusively, though cyber does play an important role in the strategy,” the official said.

Fixing Cyber Roads and Bridges

The commander of the U.S. Cyber Command said on Wednesday that critical infrastructure like power grids and financial networks are weak and need to be strengthened against cyber attacks.

“From my perspective, the threats are real and growing,” said Army Gen. Keith Alexander, who heads the Cyber Command as well as the electronic intelligence-gathering National Security Agency.

Hackers hit U.S. Department of Energy

The U.S. Department of Energy has confirmed that its computer systems were hacked into last month. According to The New York Times, the federal agency sent around an internal e-mail on Friday telling its employees about the cyberattack.

“The Department of Energy has just confirmed a recent cyber incident that occurred in mid-January which targeted the Headquarters’ network and resulted in the unauthorized disclosure of employee and contractor Personally Identifiable Information,” the e-mail said.

China the world’s ‘most sophisticated’ hacker, says Google’s Eric Schmidt

As long as the United States remains unwilling to fight fire with fire on some fronts, especially cyber warfare, expect things to get much worse — such as one day shutting down banks and grinding the economy to a halt.

China’s state-sanctioned cybercrime is a global “menace” according to Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, as he predicts a revolution in the country in the coming decades in his latest book.

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“The disparity between American and Chinese firms and their tactics will put both the government and the companies of the United States at a distinct disadvantage,” because “the United States will not take the same path of digital corporate espionage, as its laws are much stricter (and better enforced) and because illicit competition violate the American sense of fair play,” the book claims.

US plants hit by USB stick malware attack

Two power plants in the US were affected by malware attacks in 2012, a security authority has said.

In its latest quarterly newsletter, the US Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) said “common and sophisticated” attacks had taken place.

Malware had infected each plant’s system after being inadvertently brought in on a USB stick, it said.

The Secret Ways of Chinese Telecom Giant Huawei

Regardless of all the whitewashing of military background connections, there is no such thing as ex-PLA when you’re in the higher echlelon. Regardless of all the things you hear about China being a Democracy, a state-controlled Democracy isn’t a Democracy. To put it simply, Huawei is state-owned and harbors intentions other than providing technology solutions to the world. Its number one aim via manchurian chips is espionage, spying and information gathering… all for the state.

Almost a third of the planet is thought to be using its products and yet few know much about the highly secretive Chinese telecommunication equipment company Huawei. Should customers be concerned about the company founder’s military background or the security vulnerabilities of its products?

The first problem is just saying the company’s name. Huawei is pronounced wah-way. It means something like “China acts!”

The second problem is its patriotic swagger. The telecommunications networking equipment and mobile phone supplier, based in the southeastern Chinese city of Shenzhen, is accused of secretly spreading high-tech spying devices around the world, having close ties with the Chinese military and supplying products to pariah states like Iran. A recent report by the Intelligence Committee of the United States House of Representatives warned against using the company’s products for critical telecommunications infrastructure. The Australian government has also blocked the company from bidding for contracts related to the construction of its national broadband network.