5 Responses to Brazil’s Next Battlefield: Cyberspace

1. 

   Madhumita

   November 16, 2009 at 7:52 pm

   Very impressive story Michael ! Got to know many thing about cyber attack in Brazil. Thanks indeed!
2. 

   Barry Greene

   November 16, 2009 at 10:11 pm

   “Brazil is home to more cyber-criminals than any other nation and Portuguese is becoming increasingly popular in the hacker underworld. In fact, of the top 50 website defacement groups about 30% are Brazilian, according to a report released by Safemode.org.”

   I’m not sure you can use this data from Safemode to extrapolate that Brazil has more cyber-criminals than any other nation.

   Please support that assertion with more data. In conflicts with other reports which are based on data analysis or observational analysis.

   Also, your “chain of support” which says the power outages were from a cyber attack are not backed up from validated data. They are backed up from a chain of “hearsay.”

   In fact, the publicly available data dispute you assertion. I point to Brazilian Blackout Traced to Sooty Insulators, Not Hackers

   I think it is time for all the people ranting about “cyberwar” to be held the a minimum of academic standards of supporting their assertions with fact, not hearsay.
3. 

   Michael Mylrea

   November 17, 2009 at 8:02 pm

   Thanks Barry–Thought you would be interested that: the Brazilian government opened an official investigation into the cause of the blackout a couple of days after the article you sited came out: http://www.france24.com/en/node/4925711
   A day after my article was published the report above mentioned: “After initially claiming transmission lines were at fault, then deciding that a storm must have caused a short-circuit in supplies from Brazil’s largest power plant, officials have been forced to backtrack from efforts to declare the incident closed.” So you were right there was a lot “hearsay” ….and that was one of my points.

   You concluded that the evidence I provided or “chain of support” pointed to a cyberattack. I appreciate your comments, but think you missed the point of the article: “Regardless of the cause, the economic damage and security risk of future blackouts raise doubts about the security of Brazil’s critical energy infrastructure as the country is preparing to host the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.”

   More specifically, I mention: “Regardless of what they find, cyber crime presents a major threat to Brazil and other countries where critical infrastructures (health system, defense, emergency response, banking, telecom, etc.) rely on the grid to power its operations and control systems, which are increasingly connected to the internet, and therefore vulnerable to a cyber attack.”

   I hope this helpful and would be happy to follow up with you via email: michaelmylrea@gmail.com Thank you.
4. 

   Denise Rocha

   November 17, 2009 at 11:27 pm

   I am from Brazil and this is the first report that connects the dots. If you take the time to read what is going on- you’ll notice that the Brazilian gov is scrambling for answers- and stumbling. It sadly does not surprise me…………I would like to see another follow up as things develop!
5. 

   Alpha Mattingley

   May 20, 2010 at 11:06 pm

   I really liked your blog. Fantastic.