CyberWeapon
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The Pentagon's plan to outsource lethal cyber-weapons
The Pentagon has quietly put out a call for vendors to bid on a contract to develop, execute and manage its new cyber weaponry and defense program. The scope of this nearly half-billion-dollar "help wanted" work order includes counterhacking, as well as developing and deploying lethal cyberattacks -- sanctioned hacking expected to cause real-life destruction and loss of human life. In June 2016, work begins under the Cyberspace Operations Support Services contract (pdf) under CYBERCOM (United States Cyber Command). The $460 million project recently came to light and details the Pentagon's plan to hand over its IT defense and the planning, development, execution, management, integration with the NSA, and various support functions of the U.S. military's cyberattacks to one vendor.
Japan working on powerful cyber weapon, knows best defense is a good offense
The Japanese government has been (relatively) quietly churning away on an advanced new cyber weapon. In the post Stuxnet age it's no surprise that a government would be working on powerful new tools to defend its digital borders, but this particular virus (developed with help from Fujitsu) is raising eyebrows with some over how it accomplishes its goals. Essentially, when it detects an intruding piece of malware, the program follows the virtual trail left behind back to the attack's source -- disabling every machine it encounters along the way. The goal, obviously, is to stop the spread of a malicious piece of code by finding and shutting down, not just the source, but all middleman PCs that are also now potential hosts. In some admittedly extreme scenarios this weapon could potentially spiral out of control, taking out far more computers than intended. Nightmarish hellscapes dominated by computers run amok aside, its definitely interesting and we understand how it might cause some concern. Check out the source for a few more details.
