DailySA: Cyberattack takes down North Korea’s Internet

Good morning. Here’s your Daily Situational Awareness for Thursday, 27 January 2022. You can receive this daily briefing by signing up at https://forwardobserver.com/daily-sa

TODAY’S BRIEFING:

• Cyberattack takes down North Korea’s Internet
• White House updates cybersecurity strategy
• Build Back Better is back
• FEMA staff burnout impacts response
• Hazards Warning

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• In Focus: Interest rate hikes to pop the bubble?
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SITUATIONAL AWARENESS

CYBERATTACK TAKES DOWN NORTH KOREAN INTERNET: A suspected cyber attack took down the North Korean internet on Wednesday. The complete outage was caused by a Denial of Service attack on its Domain Name Service system and lasted for approximately six hours. Though some connectivity was restored, many government websites were still down at the end of the day. The cyberattack and resulting internet outage came after a month of missile testing by the North Korean military, including new hypersonic and cruise missile types. (Analyst Comment: North Korea severely restricts internet access for its 25 million citizens. Analysts believe that only about 1% of North Koreans have access to the internet; therefore, the outage likely affected only government ministries and the ruling class officials and personalities. While attribution has yet to be assigned, the cyberattack was likely a punitive response to North Korea’s latest round of missile tests. – M.M.)

WHITE HOUSE UPDATES ZERO TRUST STRATEGY: The Biden Administration has provided clarifying guidance for executive agencies implementing zero-trust security requirements by the end of fiscal year 2024. The policy memo reinforces previous direction that focuses on changes requiring modifications to password rotation processes, connection authentication systems, and encryption. The initial Executive Order that set the zero trust requirement had some agencies seeking clarity on exactly what the Administration expected regarding zero trust compliance. (AC: The bureaucratic process within the federal government is showing how slow cybersecurity practices are currently being implemented, with clarity of requirements coming eight months after initial notification. Security vulnerabilities in the cyber domain will continue to be exploited as the speed of attacks moves faster than the government can patch exposed vulnerabilities. – D.F.)  

BUILD BACK BETTER IS BACK: President Biden held a roundtable with CEOs from General Motors, Ford, Microsoft, Etsy, and Corning, among others. All the executives in attendance previously signaled support for the stalled Build Back Better Act. Senator Manchin (D-WV) remains a key Democrat holdout, indicating the social safety net provisions in the bill could be scaled back or reduced in length. In its current form, the bill will bring about universal preschool, paid family leave, increased insurance subsidies, “green energy” tax credits, and other provisions. (AC: The President needs a political “win” with this legislation. Common tactics to reduce the topline dollar amount include reducing the length of certain provisions, assuming future funding can be paired with more popular bills. Expect increased social & traditional media messaging from private companies to promote the bill, blurring the lines of the 2013 Smith-Mundt Modernization Act. Close message coordination between government initiatives and private sector entities allows U.S. citizens to be relentlessly influenced by Washington and Wall Street. – D.M.)

FEMA STAFF BURNOUT IMPACTS RESPONSE: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is facing key staffing shortages blamed on burnout, lack of training, and an inefficient disaster response architecture. FEMA’s overall workforce has grown in size, but the majority of new positions are for “crisis-activated reservists, temporary and non-career staff.” Government Accountability Office (GAO) witnesses testified to Congress that “up to 48 percent in some cases, declined deployments due…to burnout and austere conditions in the field.” The GAO believes there will be an increase in frequency and intensity of concurrent disasters, which FEMA is unprepared to manage. (AC: Increased FEMA deployments for pandemic response are expected to impact availability for future hurricane and wildfire response efforts. It is prudent to not rely on any timely FEMA response or assistance when developing your own disaster and emergency response plans. – D.M.)

HAZARDS/WX: 

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