If your firm is somewhere in the aerospace supply chain, a computer hack is coming. It looks like there a pattern is forming. First, a group of Chinese hackers stole a huge trove of US data from the US Office of Personnel Management. That was followed by  United Airlines and health insurer Anthem being hacked. The United hack has a special value. Not enough? How about this – Chinese hackers just hacked Sabre, the largest GDS system and a key supplier to American Airlines.
As pointed out in the link to The Washington Post article, this massive trove of data can be (is being) aggregated.  The new owners of the data can pinpoint specific people of interest and then, using insight from the assembled data, develop a highly targeted campaign to exert influence on these people. We are, understandably, being deliberately vague here. China, of course, denies anything to do with these hacks. So who these China-based hackers are is unclear. We cannot be sure why this data is being stolen. Are the hackers state actors? It’s not easy to tell, it seems. Both the Americans and Chinese are officially being opaque.
If indeed the pattern is acquiring data to develop a reasonably accurate digital picture of people – what kind of usefulness would such a profile have? Since the data has not, as yet, been made available for sale on the deep web, apparently, the value of the extensive data mining remains unclear.  However, being one of the people whose data was stolen has to be singularly unpleasant, especially when considering what might be aggregated and utilized to potentially create an alternate identity or be set up as a target to compromise.
Concern within the US is now starting to match concern outside the US by foreign states about US-sourced data breaches.  The US Government, as revealed by Edward Snowden, is not innocent in this regard, and retaliation is to be expected.  But private parties may not be as “hardened” against cyber-threats as government agencies.  Regardless of who is doing the breaching, it is crucial for firms (especially in the aerospace related supply chain; link 1, link 2) to immediately increase IT budgets and deploy state of the art cyber-security.
Stealing data is only a first step. Once computer systems are compromised, hackers can do a lot more harm than merely copy files. Commercial aviation rests on one bedrock belief – safety is priority #1. Given how dependent every organization has become on IT, a compromised IT system is going to negatively impact that priority. What could a Stuxnet-like virus do inside the aerospace supply chain?
Your company is going to face a hack attack if it touches the aerospace supply chain. It may have already been attacked, with “sleeping bots” (watch this zero days video) waiting to awaken, that you might not know about it.  Cold wars are about disruption, whether economically or politically, and to create havoc whenever possible.  Our increasing dependency on computers has created a new class of economic warfare based on disruption, and causing additional problems wherever possible.  In a capitalist society, the largest targets, apart from government, are the corporations we depend on, and particularly the transportation infrastructure.
From airlines and ATC to e-Enabled aircraft, electronic flight bags, MRO facilities and even the industry supply chain, enemies will probe until they find the weakest link, which they will then exploit. Â You cannot afford to be the weakest link.
A lot of workers in Aerospace and their companies also do work for military- directly or in directly. Classified or non classified. Especially true of IT issues, computers, electronic parts with embedded ‘ chips ‘, etc. And as has been shown, it doesn’t take much to knock out power grids, etc. My guess is that instead of going for the cheap ripoff of checking accounts, in time the targets will be ( and probably already are ) the Military Industrial complex. The old time version of ‘ sleeper agents ‘ is being replaced by ‘ sleeper worms- malware’, etc . Way pst time to air gap powe grids and controls, and many industrial controls from the internet.
Yep, not only govs doing it. Marketers know more about us than even WE would care to admit to ourselves. We’ve entered a world where it’s not a choice to be transparent. Everyone HAS already become transparent. Like it or not. Whether you’re on Facebook or not. You WILL be tagged. Even if you hide in a hole, someone will take a picture of your hole and post it online. This video is a “must see” for anyone who thinks that they still have “some privacy”. Your privacy is dead, get over it. Let the Chinese accumulate all the data they want on people. https://youtu.be/DaYn_PkrfvQ
BUT: this is not all bad. This works both ways. The good and the bad gets exposed. If you read what the FBI did to Martin Luther King, you know that the adage “fear not if you have nothing to hide” doesn’t hold water. When recorded all the time and in a world where some in power can hide yet “out” others (like what happened to MLK: blackmail to take conversations and connections “out of context” in some defamation process), the balance is weak. When EVERYONE can be outed for their mischiefs, then the balance is restored. If there truly aren’t any secrets anymore,will we still have war? Won’t the majority of humans overcome the few dark spots. No more troIls, no more “agents provocateurs”, no more “drums of war” based on dubious data solely for the purpose of making it acceptable for parents to accept to send 19 year olds overseas? I guess as long as we can shine the light in every corner (as long as we can bring down the great firewalls), then this WILL be a step in evolution in the human race. No need to spy, no need lie, no need to hide. It will all be there for everyone to see. People will be free. You will be able to completely take ownership of your words and actions. And be treated as such. No more hiding. So, not all negative. We won’t get there overnight and I understand the need to protect one’s population against a lot of very negative people who often end up at the top. But if even gov becomes transparent, then we’ll be in a better place. And as much as we would like it to be some other way, the toothpaste is already out of the tube, our privacy is not coming back.
Sorry, that was a mouthful 😉