This repository contains some of the articles that I have published in the public domain.
In order to fully appreciate the context in which some of these were written, I humbly request you take note of the dates these articles were authored. At the time these articles were written many of the malware techniques described were not being used by any cyber criminal organizations or even some nation states actors. Since the articles were published most of the techniques, such as advanced target fingerprinting, frequency hopping communication channels and self-destruction have been implemented in sophisticated malware and even milware (state authored malicious software, such as Stuxnet). Some of the techniques, such as self-thinking (artificial intelligence malware) are just coming to light and still need more testing before being fully implemented. One of the article highlights the technique needed to damage/destory gas centrifuges used for uranium enrichment. International researchers learned that this technique was used in milware that targeted Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz.
Many of these articles also illustrate the absolute need to defend against attacks on critical infrastructures such as electrical power and telecommunications we all rely on. One of the article from 16 years ago even talks about targeting U.S. elections with malware and how a foreign government could manipulate an election. Another article talks about the rise of digital extremism and the looming threat from these malicious actors. And finally one article discusses the need to establish Cyber Alliances and a JCERT to secure the digial sphere, which extends into all aspects of modern life.
The U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit Special Report on the Cyber Campaign Against Georgia has been referenced in over 75 books on cyber conflict, highlighted in over 100 news articles and has been discussed in various publications by the Atlantic Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the U.S. Department of Defense and many other organizations around the world.
The Asia Pacific Defense Forum (APDF) is a professional military magazine published quarterly by the Commander of the United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) to provide an international forum for military personnel within the Asia-Pacific region.
Article Title: Cyber Alliances
Year Published: 2011
Synopsis: This article provides an overview of the importance of establishing cyber alliances in the Asia Pacific theater because globalization has made the region strategic important to the world's economy.
Article Title: Tech-Savvy Terrorists
Year Published: 2011
Synopsis: This article discusses extremism on the Internet and how this radicalism can lead to terrorist acts in both cyberspace and physical space. Methodologies to counter this extremism are also highlighted.
Article Title: Securing The Cyber Sphere
Year Published: 2012
Synopsis: This article highlights the need to rethink current military doctrine to support both offensive and defensive operations in cyberspace.
Article Title: When seconds count
Year Published: 2012
Synopsis: This article looks at the usefulness of Earthquake Early Warning systems and Tsunami Warning Services in the Asia Pacific region.
The Counter Terrorist Magazine is considered the premier terrorism journal for law enforcement, intelligence and special operations professionals.
Article Title: Jihad in Cyberspace
Year Published: 2010
Synopsis: This article examines the rise of Islamic jihadists in cyberspace and how these fundamentalists communicate, recruit and train in the digital realm.
Dark Reading is one of the widely-read cyber security news sites in the world.
Article Title: A Virus Of Biblical Distortions
Year Published: 2013
Synopsis: This article re-examines the 'myrtus' text string contained in the cyber weapon "Stuxnet," which was used to damage gas centrifuges used my Iran for uranium enrichment.
Article Title: A Cyber History Of The Ukraine Conflict
Year Published: 2014
Synopsis: This article provides a brief overview of the cyber events impacting the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Ukraine) by Russia or its sympathizers.
Article Title: Cyber Reconnaissance
Year Published: 2008
Synopsis: This article explores the techniques that can be used by terrorist groups to conduct remote reconnaissance of a potential target from the safety of their computers. The article highlights how Google Streetview, Google Earth and Microsoft Virtual Earth are useful tools for planning a terrorist attack. A skilled attacker can use these online services to identify choke points or locations to plant explosives. A sophisticated adversary could couple these services with air flow models to determine how a chemical dispersion agent would flow.
The Information Operations (IO) Journal was a magazine published by the Association of Old Crows.
Article Title: Computers as Weapons of War
Year Published: 2010
Synopsis: This article looks at the evolution of offensive cyber operations that can be used either by military forces or intelligence agencies to accomplish both tactical and strategical objectives. The article discusses the uses of cyber attacks on the battlefield and beyond the battlefield. For instance, modern battle tanks are laden with advanced electronics that be disrupted with certain cyber techniques. Another example highlighted in the article is the use of stealthy cyber attacks to damage gas centrifuges used for uranium enrichment. The use of the latter attack technique was validated in a real-world cyber attack. That attack is now known as Stuxnet, which was the sophisticated cyber weapon designed to infiltrate and destroy gas centrifuges used by Iran.
Intersec is a monthly journal of international security, covering all aspects of global threat and response.
Article Title: Electronic Warfare
Year Published: 2008
Synopsis: This article highlights the potential for cyber attacks against critical infrastructure targets, including the energy sector.
The ISSA Journal is a monthly magazine published by the Information Systems Security Association.
Article Title: A Hacker Will Be With You Shortly
Year Published: 2003
Synopsis: This article looks at various social engineering methodologies and the potential countermeasures for these attacks.
Article Title: Are USB Flash Drives a security threat
Year Published: 2003
Synopsis: This article explores the threats from USB drives and some basic technical countermeasures to limit one's exposure to this threat.
Article Title: Dialing up new security woes
Year Published: 2005
Synopsis: This article highlights the security threats posed by voice over internet protocol (VoIP), including spoofing, eavesdropping and malware leapfrogging.
Article Title: Worms the New Weapons of Mass Destruction
Year Published: 2005
Synopsis: This article explores how computer worms can be used for targeted attacks by intelligence agencies or cyber criminals. One of the attack scenarios discussed is how an adversary could use a sophisticated worm to target and distrust another county's presidential election. The article also highlights 21 advanced techniques that can be designed into a self-aware (artificial intelligence) computer worm or virus. Side Note: most of these techniques were later used in Stuxnet and other advanced pieces of malware.
The Taiwanese National Defense Digest is published by the Armed Forces of Taiwan.
Article Title: Tech-Savvy Terrorists
Year Published: 2011
Synopsis: This article discusses extremism on the Internet and how this radicalism can lead to terrorist acts in both cyberspace and physical space. Methodologies to counter this extremism are also highlighted.
This International Conference on Artificial Intelligence was part of the World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing in 2014.
Article Title: Temporal Modeling of Twitter Posting Behavior
Year Published: 2014
Synopsis: This paper describes our approach for temporally modeling the posting behavior of users on the Twitter microblogging service. While other researchers have analyzed general trends of Twitter behavior (for instance, few users contribute most of the posts), we instead focus on modeling the temporal behavior of individual users. Specifically, we determine whether we can model the day-of-the-week posting behavior (e.g., this person is a “weekend warrior”) and the within-day posting behavior (e.g., “night owl” or “morning person”) for individuals. This “individual life pattern” analysis is useful for medical and public health applications. For instance, significant deviations from normal behavior might indicate that a person is potentially ill. Our contribution focuses on probabilistically modeling the posting behavior and then using Kullback-Leibler divergence to demonstrate how well the model captures a user’s posting behavior.
Article Title: Overview of the Cyber Campaign Against Georgia in August of 2008
Year Published: 2009
Synopsis: This special report highlights the consequences of the August 2008 cyber campaign against the country of Georgia. The report provides a public analysis of this cyber campaign and the lessons learned from this regional incident that had international ramifications.