Technology

Concerns and Limitation of Cyber Warfare

Published

5 years ago

March 14, 2019

The discovery of Stuxnet, a malware that targeted a nuclear facility, was somewhat revolutionary and groundbreaking. It targeted ICS which monitor and run industrial facilities. Before that, most of malicious programs were developed to steal information or break-in into financial sector to extort money. Stuxnet went beyond went and targeted high-level facilities. It is not hard to imagine what damage it could have inflicted if the worm were not detected. What is more worrisome, the technology is out. It might not be perfect, but it is definitely a start. Regardless of the intentions behind Stuxnet, a cyber bomb has exploded and everyone knows that cyber capabilities indeed can be developed and mastered.

Therefore, if they can be developed, they will probably be. The final goal of Stuxnet was to affect the physical equipment which was run by specific ICS. It was done in order to manipulate computer programs and make it act as an attacker intended it to act. Such a cyberattack had a particular motivation; sabotage of industrial equipment and destruction could have been one of the goals. So, if they were indeed the goals, it might have been an offensive act, conducted by an interested party, presumably, a state for its political objective. Yet, there are certain limitations when it comes to so-called “cyber weapons” (malware that might be employed for military use or intelligence gathering).

One of the main concerns of cyber offence is that code may spread uncontrollably to other systems. In terms of another physical weapon, it is like a ballistic missile that anytime can go off-course and inflict damage on unintended targets and/or kill civilians. Cyber offensive technology lacks precision, which is so valued in military. For example, in ICS and SCADA systems one may never know what can backfire because of the complexity of the system. The lack of precision consequently affects military decisions. When launching a weapon, officers should know its precise capabilities; otherwise, it is too risky and is not worth it.

In case of Stuxnet, the program started replicating itself and infected computers of many countries. For this moment we do not know if it were planned in that way. However, provided that that target was Natanz facility, it is unlikely. Symantec Corporation started analyzing the case only with external help; it did not come from Natanz. This exacerbates the case if a country decides to launch an offensive cyberattack.

If the military planning cannot prevent cyber technology to go awry or to go out in the public, it brings more disadvantages than advantages. Moreover, given a possibility of the code being discovered and broke down to pieces to understand what it does, it may potentially benefit an opposing party (and any other interested party along the way). This is unacceptable in military affairs.

Similarly, when the code is launched and it reaches the target, it can be discovered by an opponent. In comparison to nuclear, when a bomb explodes, it brings damage and destruction, but its technology remains in secret. In case of cyber, it may not be the case, as when a malware/virus is discovered, it can be reverse engineered to patch vulnerability. By studying the code, an enemy would find out the technology/tactics used that could be unfavourable in the long-run for the attacker.

Additionally, it should be said that not every malware is meant to spread by itself. In order to control the spread, vulnerability can be patched, meaning updating the software which had that vulnerability. An anti-malware can also be introduced; this will make the computer system immune to that particular vulnerability. Nonetheless, if the malware spreads uncontrollably, there is nothing much that an attacker can do. It is not possible to seize the attack. In this scenario, an attack may only release information about this certain vulnerability so that someone else can fix it. However, a state is highly unlikely to do so, especially if the damage is extensive. It would not only cost the state diplomatic consequences, but also it might severely impact its reputation.

An AI-enabled cyberattack could perhaps fulfill its potential. That means involvement of artificial intelligence. AI systems could make digital programs more precise, controlling the spread. In contrast, it could also lead to a greater collateral damage, if a system decides to target other facilities that may result in human death. Similar concerns are raised in the area of autonomous weapon systems in regard to the need of leaving decision-making to humans and not to technology. AI technology has a potential to make existing cyberattacks more effective and more efficient (Schaerf, 2018).

Aforementioned concern leads to another and affects the end result. When a certain weapon is employed, it is believed to achieve a certain goal, e.g. to destroy a building. With cyber capabilities, there is no such certainty. In the case of Stuxnet, the malware clearly failed to achieve its end goal, which is to disrupt the activities of the industrial facility.

Alternatively, the true costs of cyberattacks may be uncertain and hard to calculate. If that is so, an attacker faces high level of uncertainty, which may also prevent them from a malicious act (particularly, if nation states are involved). However, the costs and the benefits may always be miscalculated, and an attacker hoping for a better gain may lose much more in the end (e.g. consider Pearl Harbour).

Another concern refers to the code becoming available to the public. If it happens, it can be copied, re-used and/or improved. Similar concerns in regards to proliferation and further collateral damage emerged when Stuxnet code became available online. An attacker may launch a cyberattack, and if it is discovered, another hacker can reverse engineer the code and use it against another object. Moreover, the code can be copied, improved and specialized to meet the needs of another party. Technology is becoming more complex, and by discovering a malware developed by others, it also takes less time to produce a similar program and/or develop something stronger. (For instance, after Stuxnet, more advanced malwares were discovered – Duqu and Flame).

Furthermore, there are other difficulties with the employment of cyber offensive technology. In order to maximize its result, it should be supported by intelligence. In case of Stuxnet, an offender needed to pinpoint the location of the facility and the potential equipment involved. It has to find zero-days vulnerabilities that are extremely rare and hard to find[1]. Cyber vulnerability is all about data integrity. It should be reliable and accurate. Its security is essential in order to run an industrial infrastructure.

After pinpointing vulnerability, security specialists need to write a specific code, which is capable of bridging through an air-gapped system. In case of Stuxnet, all of abovementioned operations required a certain level of intelligence support and financial capability. These complex tasks involved into development were exactly the reason why Stuxnet was thought to be sponsored and/or initiated by a nation state. If intelligence is lacking, it may not bring a desirable effect. Moreover, if cyber offense is thought to be used in retaliation, malicious programs should be ready to use (as on “high-alert”) in the event of necessity.

Regardless of some advantages of cyber offence (like low costs, anonymity etc), this technology appears to be unlikely for a separate use by military. There is a high level of uncertainty and this stops the army of using technology in offence. Truth is when you have other highly precise weapons, it does not make sense to settle for some unreliable technology that may or may not bring you a wanted result. Yet, other types of cyberattacks like DDoS attacks can give some clear advantages during military operations and give an attacker some good cards in case of a conflict. When such attacks used together with military ground operations, they are much more likely to bring a desired result.

[1] For better understanding, out of twelve million pieces of malware that computer security companies find each year, less than a dozen uses a zero-day exploit.

Health

The technological advances in physical and occupational physiotherapy that you should know about

Published

6 months ago

October 23, 2023

Andra Tudor

Technology has reached all areas of human life to help us carry out various tasks and to make everyone’s lives easier in different ways. These advances are also in medicine and in the different therapeutic treatments that are used to improve various ailments. Learn what the most advanced methods are and how you can use them.

Health is the most precious thing for every person; extreme care must be taken to ensure the correct functioning of the body. There are many ways and procedures aimed at treating various conditions and helping to stay healthy, which have been significantly enhanced thanks to advances in technology.

The area of physiotherapy is one of those that has taken the best advantage of technological advances, and it has raised the quality and effectiveness of its therapies and procedures to levels never before experienced. Thanks to them, physical and occupational physiotherapy has improved substantially and is increasingly valued for the treatment of various health cases.

Physiotherapy programs for physical rehabilitation

Currently, there are various physical therapy software programs that help patients recover and improve their physical functionality quite efficiently. There is advanced software, with a wide range of physical exercises based on virtual reality, which are designed to promote the progressive and effective recovery of those who find themselves in the need to use them.

Digital physical rehabilitation software includes analytical and functional exercises, which can be used in the rehabilitation of neurological patients, in the recovery of musculoskeletal injuries, in the prevention of falls, in programs against premature ageing and even with children that suffer these types of ailments.

Advantages of using software in physiotherapy

Physiotherapy computer programs are health products, specially designed by professionals, specifically for clinical use. They offer many advantages, among which the following stand out:

Enjoy the therapy sessions: the gamification that can be achieved with new technologies applied to physiotherapy turns the sessions into truly fun moments, which increases the patient’s motivation and their active participation in performing the corresponding exercises.
Rehabilitation quantification: all kinematic parameters, such as joint ranges, measurement of the base of support, centre of gravity, number, and characteristics of steps, among others, can be consulted in detail at any time during the therapy. Additionally, they can generate detailed clinical reports on each patient, which can be printed or exported in PDF format.
Remote sessions: technological advances have reached such high levels that they now open the possibility of applying remote sessions to the patient, thanks to the corresponding home exercise program software for physical therapy designed for this purpose. In this way, treatment can be reinforced with home sessions, which are also monitored and allow remote management, even from the centre itself. This has greatly benefited patients that have mobility problems.

Physical therapy home exercise programs are digital tools that help therapists and patients develop personalised exercise plans from the comfort of their homes. They provide a wide variety of benefits and features that improve rehabilitation and accelerate recovery.

Physiotherapists can decide with which patients and how to develop the digital physical rehabilitation exercises available to them, which can be personalised and adapted according to the needs of each patient.

Occupational therapy software programs

The occupational therapy software programs offer a multitude of resources and tools for therapists and patients, including simulations of everyday tasks, virtual activities to improve fine motor skills, time management strategies, and hand-eye coordination exercises, among others.

One of the main resources used is related to immersive virtual rehabilitation, which allows training various functions of the hand and different movements of the upper extremities that workers perform in their corresponding tasks. To do this, virtual reality and specialised programs are used that simulate environments similar to those they face on a daily basis in their jobs.

These occupational therapy software programs also include patient progress monitoring and assessment tools. They are digital solutions that improve the efficiency of occupational therapy by providing interactive virtual environments and resources tailored to the individual needs of each patient.

Personalization of rehabilitation programs

An important advantage offered by technological advances in this area is the possibility of having personalized rehabilitation programs, which therapists can use to adapt treatments to each patient’s purposes and abilities.

The personalization of rehabilitation programs substantially improves the effectiveness of treatments by addressing the unique needs of each patient. Additionally, this rehabilitation software provides useful resources to monitor and adjust as patients progress in their recovery.

This capacity for adaptation and personalization favours a firmer rehabilitation and speeds up the return to normal functionality of the treated people.

It is a feature that offers various benefits, such as the possibility of applying more individualised approaches, which guarantees that the exercises are safe, effective, and appropriate to promote recovery, and the optimization of results, as they are exercises designed specifically to meet each patient’s needs. .

They also generate greater motivation and adherence, by considering the interests, preferences, and goals of each individual treated, and help prevent additional injuries, since the exercises are adapted to the individual capabilities and limitations of each person.

In conclusion, physical and occupational therapy software has transformed the way rehabilitation is performed on people today. They are digital tools with a wide variety of features that improve the efficiency and personalization of treatments, tailoring the perfect exercise routine for each patient’s needs.

They cover various areas, from home exercise programs to creating personalized exercise plans, facilitating faster and more effective recovery for patients. But, these advances do not stop and aim to continue towards levels that cannot even be imagined, so we can count on an even more promising future in this important area of health.

Do not think about it anymore, if you are suffering from any ailment that could benefit from remote therapy, or know of someone that does, check this software today and see how your life can easily improve thanks to the help of the experts behind them. Your health will thank you.

Technology

What are spamtraps and how to get them off your mailing list for good?

Published

1 year ago

January 3, 2023

Andra Tudor

There is a silent enemy that many companies face and that focuses directly on the contact list. It is spamtraps. These are emails that are meant to catch spammers, but negatively influence mass mailings. Today we are going to find out why, and we are going to assess some actions that are easy to do to get them out of the way.

Mailing lists are generally formed by people who are interested in using a product or service of a company and who subscribe voluntarily. However, it can happen that an email appears normal-looking, but it is a spammer detector. When an email is sent to these addresses, they block it, causing a negative impact on the reputation of the brand that sent it.

Spamtraps are traps for emails, in short. They do not belong to any real person, and their only function is to block the sender of the email and mark him or her as a spammer. In this way, the brand is affected, even if the content sent has nothing to do with spam. These exist on all existing email platforms, such as Gmail or Yahoo.

Characteristics of spam traps

Although there is no simple way to find out which of the emails on your list are spamtraps, you can assess some characteristics that lead to the most frequent spamtraps. Here we can see elements such as:

No direct relation to a person: people generally put their names when creating their emails. Although this does not happen in 100% of cases, it could be an important factor to consider if you see some emails made up of meaningless letters and numbers, for example.
Emails with generic names: Generic names are not a good sign, even though many companies use them as a means of communication. To separate those that are real from those that are not, it is possible to check the domain of which the emails are part. For example, there may be emails in a list that start with the word sales@XXXXXX. What completes the part of the X’s will tell us what the chances are that it is a spamtrap. In any case, be aware that it is very unlikely that a company will subscribe to a newsletter using this type of email.
Abandoned emails: Technology has come a long way in recent times, and this has led to the use of new ways of communicating. Nowadays, it is very unlikely that there are people who subscribe to a list with a Hotmail email address. It is therefore essential to check, if you have one, that it is not an abandoned email that can be used with ISPs because they are no longer in use.
Misspelled emails: This is a very common situation that occurs, especially when double confirmation is not used. In this case, it is possible that a person enters the mailing list with a misspelled entry and then the result is an email that ends, for example, in @gml.com. You have to be very careful with these. The recommendation is to always run the confirmation to ensure that it is a real and operational address.

Actions to take to verify spamtraps on the mailing list

Now that we have an idea of what we can look for in the list and target what looks the most suspicious, we can define a series of actions to take in order to detect whether the list is clean or whether there are any harmful elements present.

The first thing to do is to review your entire contact list. This can be a tedious task when you have a large number of subscribers, but it is worth the effort. If in this first step you got several suspicious emails, you should flag them to check their behaviour in the following points.

Then, it will be time to evaluate the results of the email marketing campaigns sent previously. In these campaigns, you will get a history of very interesting data that will tell you how many people generally open the emails, those who do not, etc. The important thing here is to assess whether the values shown in the history are more or less constant or have suffered a significant decrease in recent days. If this is the case, it could be due to spamtraps.

It is common for these problems to become apparent when a number of new users join the list. It is possible that among them there is an email that works as a spam trap. The simplest solution to recognize if this is the problem is to perform a segmentation and send an email to the members of this new list and verify the results.

Finally, you will need to check if the domain you are using is on the block list. This is an essential step to know if you really have a problem or not. Doing this on a regular basis is key to avoiding problems.

Segmentation as a working strategy

Working with email marketing software that allows the segmentation of the mailing list is a benefit that will remove problems later and, of course, spamtrap detection is one of them. Thanks to segmentation, it will be possible to create groups of users to whom certain campaigns are sent and evaluate the response they have.

Mailrelay is the best option in this regard because it offers the possibility to segment and also to validate the statistics. With the statistics you can measure the percentage of clicks that were made and that can give us an important guide, since this is an action that can only be performed by real people.

Nowadays, there are already robots capable of opening emails that arrive at your server, so the open rate is no longer a valuable statistic in this regard.

After you are clear about which contact segments are performing well, you can continue to work with them as normal and separate those that are not performing well to validate them later. It is better to keep fewer subscribers than to risk having your domain blocked and losing your entire list.

Business

9 Ways to Keep Technology from Slowing Down Your Business

Published

2 years ago

February 6, 2022

Andra Tudor

There’s no doubt that technology has made our lives easier. We can now do things we never thought possible, like communicating with people all over the world in an instant or order items from the comfort of our own homes. However, with great power comes great responsibility- and for business owners, this means making sure that technology doesn’t slow you down. Here are nine ways to keep your business running at full speed.

Make a Plan

Technology can be unpredictable, so it’s important to have a plan in place in case of any malfunctions. This includes having backups of your data and creating disaster recovery plans in case of emergencies.

Stay Updated

Keep your software up-to-date, as well as your operating system and hardware. Outdated software can cause compatibility issues and make your devices run slower.

Use the Right Tools

Using the right tools for the job is essential when it comes to technology. If you’re using an outdated program or device, chances are there’s a better, faster option out there that will suit your needs. Even shortcuts are important tools, like automatic cache cleaner for Mac users in your company.

Create Standards

Creating standards for how employees use technology can help keep things running smoothly. This means establishing guidelines on passwords, data storage, backups, and any other procedures related to technology usage at work.

Get Help

If you don’t have the resources internally then, it’s crucial to get help from someone who knows what they’re doing. This can be a tech-savvy friend or coworker, an IT professional if your budget allows for it, or even just reading articles online about how best to use specific devices/software programs.

Invest in New Equipment

Upgrading equipment regularly will help keep things running smoothly and make sure that there aren’t any compatibility issues with new software releases. It also ensures employees always know what tools are available when needed without having them search through piles of old files looking for something specific like an outdated version of Microsoft Word or Excel that won’t work with the latest operating system they’re trying to install on their computer.

Create a Backup Plan

Having multiple backups of your data makes it easy to recover files after an emergency situation like a power outage, hard drive crash, or (heaven forbid) a hacking, so you can get back up and running as soon as possible without losing any valuable information.

Train Employees

It’s vital for employees who use technology regularly at work, such as those in IT departments, customer service positions, etcetera – to have training sessions on how best to utilize whatever type of device/software program they’ll be using daily. This will help them avoid making mistakes which could lead to major problems down the line if left unchecked by management personnel. Allowing users time off from duties during these training sessions will also ensure they’re not distracted while learning new skills that may be required on some projects within their company.

Keep Your Data Secure

Keeping your data secure is essential to any business, and this means more than just backing it up regularly or installing antivirus software. For example, it’s important for companies who deal with sensitive information about clients/customers, etcetera – take steps such as encrypting emails containing personal details before sending them out across networks which can sometimes have vulnerabilities (e.g., open Wi-Fi). You should also train employees on how best to utilize whatever type of device/software program they’ll be using daily so there will never again be confusion over what needs doing when dealing with confidential files work.