From: The Guardian
From attackers trying to bring down planes to criminals targeting banks, the danger is growing
Leo Cendrowicz in Mons
It’s been a busy week in the skies above Europe’s periphery, as Nato has repeatedly scrambled jets to track “unusual” sorties by Russian bombers.
However lively the aerial game of cat and mouse has been, it is nothing compared to the digital skirmishing that goes on in and around the servers and systems that sustain the western alliance.
“The threat landscape is vast, from malware and hacktivists to organised criminals and state-sponsored attacks,” says Ian West, a former RAF officer who now heads up Nato’s cyber-security services. “Things that we thought impossible can be done.”
West’s 200-strong team covers operations for about 100,000 people at 34 Nato sites. Their task is formidable even by the hyperbolic standards of the internet. “Our intrusion detection systems find around 200m suspicious events each day,” West says.
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“It is serious. If a business gets attacked, it can go under. If our systems at Nato fail, people may die.”
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