Google serves as first line of defense during Russia’s invasion of Georgia (A plug for the cloud)

From PC Break/Fix to CloudMASTER®

By G C Network | August 29, 2016

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevendonovan It was late 2011 and Steven Donovan was comfortable working at SHI International Corporation, a growing information technology firm, as a personal computer break/fix technician. His company had been…

Is Data Classification a Bridge Too Far?

By G C Network | August 17, 2016

Today data has replaced money as the global currency for trade. “McKinsey estimates that about 75 percent of the value added by data flows on the Internet accrues to “traditional”…

Vendor Neutral Training: Proven Protection Against Cloud Horror Stories

By G C Network | August 10, 2016

Cloud computing is now entering adolescence.  With all the early adopters now swimming in the cloud pool with that “I told you so” smug, fast followers are just barely beating…

Cognitive Business: When Cloud and Cognitive Computing Merge

By G C Network | July 21, 2016

Cloud computing has taken over the business world! With almost maniacal focus, single proprietors and Board Directors of the world’s largest conglomerates see this new model as a “must do”.…

Government Cloud Achilles Heel: The Network

By G C Network | July 9, 2016

Cloud computing is rewriting the books on information technology (IT) but inter-cloud networking remains a key operational issue. Layering inherently global cloud services on top of a globally fractured networking…

System Integration Morphs To Cloud Service Integration

By G C Network | June 19, 2016

Cloud Service Brokerage is changing from an industry footnote toward becoming a major system integration play.  This role has now become a crucial component of a cloud computing transition because…

Networking the Cloud for IoT – Pt 3 Cloud Network Systems Engineering

By G C Network | June 17, 2016

Dwight Bues & Kevin Jackson (This is Part 3 of a three part series that addresses the need for a systems engineering approach to IoT and cloud network design.  Networking the Cloud for IoT –…

Networking the Cloud for IoT – Pt. 2 Stressing the Cloud

By G C Network | June 12, 2016

Dwight Bues & Kevin Jackson This is Part 2 of a three part series that addresses the need for a systems engineering approach to IoT and cloud network design. Part…

Networking the Cloud for IoT – Pt. 1: IoT and the Government

By G C Network | June 7, 2016

  Dwight Bues & Kevin Jackson This is Part 1 of a three part series that addresses the need for a systems engineering approach to IoT and cloud network design:…

Parallel Processing and Unstructured Data Transforms Storage

By G C Network | May 31, 2016

(This post originally appeared on Direct2Dell, The Official Dell Corporate Blog) Enterprise storage is trending away from traditional, enterprise managed network-attached storage (NAS) and storage area networks (SAN) towards a…

As reported by the Christian Science Monitor, “As Georgian troops retreated to defend their capital from Russian attack, the websites of their government, also under fire, retreated to Google. In an Internet first, Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reopened its site on Google’s free Blogger network and gave reporters a Gmail address to reach the National Security Council.”
——–

Now that the Russians are apparently pulling out of Georgia, the world is rushing to understand if we’re at the front end of a new Cold War. One of the things I focused on was the impact of this on the reality of cloud computing for the DoD.

According to the New York Times, “… the attacks against Georgia’s Internet infrastructure began as early as July 20, with coordinated barrages of millions of requests — known as distributed denial of service, or D.D.O.S., attacks — that overloaded and effectively shut down Georgian servers.”

Weeks before the “kinetic attack”, Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks reported “a stream of data directed at Georgian government sites…”. Other Internet technical experts cited this as the first known cyberattack that had coincided with a shooting war.

Assuming that this won’t be the last world conflict, this lesson may actually be a good thing for the future of cloud computing.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, “The online attacks forced the website of the president of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, to relocate to the United States at Tulip Systems Inc., an Atlanta-based Web-hosting company. Even there it was under continued attack, although it was reachable from a Boston-based computer as of Wednesday [August 13, 2008] afternoon.”

If the website was hosted in a globally distributed cloud, how could an adversary even target Georgian government sites with DDOS attack? Distributed defense in the public cloud may be the best thing for DoD.

A timely reference for this would be From Information operations to cyber warfare and a new terrain posted on Selil Blog.

You should also read Kevin Donovan’s take on this in his blog.

Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson

G C Network