Jared Cohen - The New Digital Age

“it’s just much harder to know who took the shot at you”: Craig Mundie in discussion with the authors, November 2011.

Mundie calls cyber-espionage tactics “weapons of mass disruption”: Craig Mundie, “Information Security in the Digital Decade.” Remarks at the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangkok, Thailand, October 20, 2003, http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/exec/craig/10-20security.aspx.

until a virus known as Flame, discovered in 2012, claimed that title: “Resource 207: Kaspersky Lab Research Proves That Stuxnet and Flame Developers Are Connected,” Kaspersky Lab, June 11, 2012, http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/virus/2012/Resource_207_KasperskyLab_Research_Proves_that_Stuxnet_and_Flame_Developers_are_Connected.

causing the centrifuges to abruptly speed up or slow down: David E. Sanger, “Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran,” New York Times, June 1, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?_r=1&ref=davidesanger&pagewanted=all.

perhaps unwittingly introduced by a Natanz employee on a USB flash drive: Ibid.

as the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, admitted: Julian Borger and Saeed Kamali Dehghan, “Attack on Iranian Nuclear Scientists Prompts Hit Squad Claims,” Guardian (Manchester), November 29, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/29/iranian-nuclear-scientists-attack-claims.

had escaped “into the wild”: Sanger, “Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran,” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?_r=1&ref=davidesanger&pagewanted=all.

references to dates and biblical stories: Elinor Mills, “Stuxnet: Fact vs. Theory,” CNET, October 5, 2010, http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20018530-245.html.

written by as many as thirty people: Michael Joseph Gross, “A Declaration of Cyber-War,” Vanity Fair, April 2011, http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/04/stuxnet-201104.

an early variant of Stuxnet: Elinor Mills, “Shared Code Indicates Flame, Stuxnet Creators Worked Together,” CNET, June 11, 2012, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57450292-83/shared-code-indicates-flame-stuxnet-creators-worked-together/.

Unnamed Obama administration officials confirmed: Sanger, “Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran,” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?_r=1&ref=davidesanger&pagewanted=all.

“Do you really expect me to tell you?”: Meir Dagan in discussion with the authors, June 2012.

Olympic Games, was carried into the next administration: Sanger, “Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran,” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?_r=1&ref=davidesanger&pagewanted=all.

After building the malware and testing it: Ibid.

Larry Constantine … challenges Sanger’s analysis: Larry Constantine, interview by Steven Cherry, “Stuxnet: Leaks or Lies?,” Techwise Conversations (podcast), IEEE Spectrum, September 4, 2012, http://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/computing/embedded-systems/stuxnet-leaks-or-lies.

Michael V. Hayden, the former CIA director, told Sanger: Sanger, “Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran,” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?_r=1&ref=davidesanger&pagewanted=all.

Sanger reported that American officials denied that Flame was part of the Olympic Games: Ibid.

security experts at Kaspersky Lab: “Resource 207: Kaspersky Lab Research Proves That Stuxnet and Flame Developers Are Connected,” http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/virus/2012/Resource_207_Kaspersky_Lab_Research_Proves_that_Stuxnet_and_Flame_Developers_are_Connected; Mills, “Shared Code Indicates Flame, Stuxnet Creators Worked Together,” http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57450292-83/shared-code-indicates-flame-stuxnet-creators-worked-together/.

identified a particular module, known as Resource 207: “Resource 207: Kaspersky Lab Research Proves That Stuxnet and Flame Developers Are Connected,” http://www.kaspersky.com/about/news/virus/2012/Resource_207_Kaspersky_Lab_Research_Proves_that_Stuxnet_and_Flame_Developers_are_Connected.

a senior Kaspersky researcher explained: Mills, “Shared Code Indicates Flame, Stuxnet Creators Worked Together,” http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57450292-83/shared-code-indicates-flame-stuxnet-creators-worked-together/.

diplomatic fight in 2007 over the Estonian government’s decision: “Bronze Soldier Installed at Tallinn Military Cemetery,” RIA Novosti (Moscow), April 30, 2007, http://en.rian.ru/world/20070430/64692507.html.

mass of prominent Estonian websites: Ian Traynor, “Russia Accused of Unleashing Cyberwar to Disable Estonia,” Guardian (Manchester), May 16, 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/may/17/topstories3.russia.

Estonia is often called the most wired country on Earth: Joshua Davis, “Hackers Take Down the Most Wired Country in Europe,” Wired, August 21, 2007, http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia?currentPage=all.

Urmas Paet, accused the Kremlin directly: Doug Bernard, “New Alarm Bells, and Old Questions, About the Flame Virus and Cyber-War,” VOA (blog), May 30, 2012, http://blogs.voanews.com/digital-frontiers/tag/cyber-war/.

NATO and European Commission experts were unable to find evidence: “Estonia Has No Evidence of Kremlin Involvement in Cyber Attacks,” RIA Novosti (Moscow), June 9, 2007, http://en.rian.ru/world/20070906/76959190.html.

websites for the Georgian military and government were brought down: John Markoff, “Georgia Takes a Beating in the Cyberwar with Russia,” Bits (blog), New York Times, August 11, 2008, http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/georgia-takes-a-beating-in-the-cyberwar-with-russia/; John Markoff, “Before the Gunfire, Cyberattacks,” New York Times, August 12, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/technology/13cyber.html.

Russian hackers targeted the Internet providers in Kyrgyzstan: Gregg Keizer, “Russian ‘Cybermilitia’ Knocks Kyrgyzstan Offline,” Computerworld, January 28, 2009, http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9126947/Russian_cybermilitia_knocks_Kyrgyzstan_offline.

shutting down 80 percent of the country’s bandwidth for days: Christopher Rhoads, “Kyrgyzstan Knocked Offline,” Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123310906904622741.html.

Some believe the attacks were intended: Ibid.; “Kyrgyzstan to Close US Airbase, Washington Says No Plans Made,” Hurriyet (Istanbul), January 17, 2009, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/world/10796846.asp?scr=1.

In late 2009, Google detected unusual traffic within its network: David Drummond, “A New Approach to China,” Google Blog, January 12, 2010, http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html.

Google’s decision to alter its business position in China: David Drummond, “A New Approach to China, an Update,” Google Blog, March 22, 2010, http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html.

Pentagon gave the directive to establish United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM): “U.S. Cyber Command,” U.S. Strategic Command, updated December 2011, http://www.stratcom.mil/factsheets/cyber_command/.

Robert Gates declared cyberspace to be the “fifth domain” of military operations: Misha Glenny, “Who Controls the Internet?,” Financial Times Magazine (London), October 8, 2010, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3e52897c-d0ee-11df-a426-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1nYp7grM6; Susan P. Crawford, “When We Wage Cyberwar, the Whole Web Suffers,” Bloomberg, April 25, 2012, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-25/when-we-wage-cyberwar-the-whole-web-suffers.html.