SoftLayer Technologies – Does the Cyber War “Buck” Stop There?
Last Updated on Sunday, 21 December 2008 01:35 Written by admin Monday, 17 November 2008 08:34
President Truman made “The buck stops here” famous, but it remains as apropos today as it was back then. In this case, the question of where the buck stops is pertinent to any investigation into Cyber War operations.
As an example, SoftLayer Technologies (based in Plano, TX) leased an IP block to an unregistered company, Innovations IT Solutions Corp., operating out of a mail drop in London, which in turn hosted the Web forum StopGeorgia.ru, which was one of the coordinating points for the Russian hacker attacks against Georgia.
Had SoftLayer done even a minimum amount of due diligence, it would have discovered the flimsy background of its customer. In fact, as a company that StopBadware.org lists in their top ten worst network block owners and that the recent McColo Cyber Crime USA Report lists in their top 5, you’d think that the executives at SoftLayer would be happy to up their scrutiny of their prospective customers. So far, no joy.
The hard reality is that the bad guys in cyber space aren’t constrained by national borders. A cyber war can be waged against another State with technology supplied by the victim nation’s own corporations or by those of it’s allies. Part of any defense against cyber warfare, cyber espionage, and cyber crime may be to enlist the CEOs of companies like Softlayer to run a D&B check or other screening of its potential customers and slam the door on those that fit the profile of criminal enterprises.
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In my recent experiences, Softlayer care not one jot about providing hosting for cyber criminals. After several reports to their abuse email address and after sending logs to them providing evidence of attacks perpetrated by one of their customers they did absolutely nothing and then resorted to ignoring any follow ups.
I guess they count the money they are getting from scumbags in eastern Europe as more important than integrity. Way to go Softlayer – bad karma, bad bad karma.