From Chits to Chatbots: Cheating in India’s Education System

Naresh Singh

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In June 2024, a video clip of mass cheating during MA and MBA exams conducted by the Indira Gandhi National Open University in Bihar raised serious questions about the state’s education system. It was the latest in a string of such incidents in Bihar.

In February 2023, a video clip surfaced in Bihar’s Samastipur district, which showed family members of Class X students passing chits to their wards through window grills and telling or showing them answers to questions at an examination center.

Five years before this video went viral, young men, again in Bihar, were photographed climbing up buildings and passing handwritten chits to students so they could cheat during an exam.

Regrettably, such instances of traditional forms of cheating regularly occur in states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. A combination of factors — lack of political will to stop adoption of unfair means, poor in-school learning and a lack of sufficiently qualified teachers — push desperate students to cheat in exams, particularly in these two states.

But now a new form of cheating appears to be gaining ground across India’s education system, especially in higher education. Students and researchers are turning to artificial intelligence-driven technology to help them cheat, which makes detection of their wrongdoing difficult if not impossible.

Why Modi’s shifting India away from US toward China

Bhim Bhurtel

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India and China have recently agreed to disengage from their prolonged border standoff in the western sector of the India-China Himalayan border on the sidelines of 16th BRICS summit. Tensions have simmered since June 15, 2020, after 20 Indian and an unknown number of Chinese soldiers were killed in a high-mountain clash.

China’s main grievance with India emerged after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power and began strengthening ties with the United States. India started signing agreements that effectively designated it as a US partner and ally in South Asia.

China perceived this as part of Washington’s broader “China containment policy,” which was central to former President Barack Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” strategy during his second term. In response, China sought to pressure India, aiming to keep it from becoming too closely aligned with the US.

On August 29, 2016, India signed an adapted version of the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) with the US. In response, China ramped up pressure on India, particularly at the Doklam tri-junction, where the borders of Bhutan, China and India converge.

In an effort to ease tensions, India’s then-foreign secretary, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, visited Beijing and assured his Chinese counterparts that India was committed to resolving differences through a high-level mechanism.

The U.S.–India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) from 2022 to 2025: Assessment, Learnings, and the Way Forward

Rudra Chaudhuri & Konark Bhandari

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Introduction

“The mood was great,” is how a senior official described interactions in June 2024 between U.S. and Indian counterparts during the second round of review meetings of the U.S.–India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET).1 The U.S. National Security Advisor (NSA) Jake Sullivan traveled to New Delhi with a notable delegation of officials.

The strategic directive from the White House was clear: India, as a U.S. official put it to us, “is a critical part of the growing complexities in a substantively different geopolitical world.”2 There is an unmistakable imperative on the part of the White House to further deepen strategic ties with India, as also underlined to us by U.S. officials over the last two years. As far as officials are concerned, this is a “good bet.”3 This line of thinking is not new—it can be traced back to the early part of this century when both India and the United States decided to reshape strategic relations.

Yet, two decades ago, India did not have the wide range of strategic capabilities it does now—in space, defense, opportunities in manufacturing critical technologies, assembling and testing emerging technologies, some aspects of artificial intelligence (AI), low-cost and scalable solutions in biotechnologies, and a lot else. These varied competencies, if they can be called that, provide a new basis to further forge ties between these two outsized democracies.

New Gwadar International Airport: An Asset for Pakistan or Another Economic Burden for China?

Mariyam Suleman Anees

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On the sidelines of the recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Islamabad, Pakistan and China signed 13 agreements, covering a range of sectors including security, livelihood, education, agriculture, human resources development, and science and technology. However, the highlight of the meeting was the virtual inauguration by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang of the New Gwadar International Airport.

Built at a cost of $230 million, the airport is one of the projects under the $50 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It extends over an area of 17 square kilometers and is touted to be Pakistan’s second largest airport, designed to accommodate some of the world’s largest aircraft, including the ATR 72, Airbus A-300), Boeing 737, and Boeing 747. The airport is expected to create around 3,000 jobs.

However, the airport’s location in the sparsely populated province of Balochistan, particularly in Gwadar district, which has a population of just over 100,000, raises several questions regarding the airport’s ability to attract passengers and cargo traffic. Without sufficient demand, the airport risks becoming another underutilized airport similar to the Chinese-funded Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport in Sri Lanka. Given these concerns, it is essential to first assess how this project fits into the broader CPEC.

‘Culture Of Mobocracy’ Through Post-Hasina Student Protests Engulfs Bangladesh’s Interim Govt – Analysis

Kamran Reza Chowdhury

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The students who drove Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from office through protests are wielding power through on-going street demonstrations to pressure the interim government and courts to give in to their demands to clean house, observers say.

Student leaders who spearheaded massive protests in July and August, which brought about Hasina’s ouster, are serving in the interim government. But in the streets, students have been carrying on with protests, with the transitional administration headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus giving in to them on multiple occasions, potentially derailing its own authority and reform efforts, one analyst warned.

“It seems this interim government is performing according to the desire of the students. The students are the main force of this government. Questions remain whether it can use its authority without the influence of the students,” Nizam Uddin Ahmed, a political analyst and retired professor of public administration, told BenarNews.

“The government should change course and execute policies independently because leading a movement and leading a government are not the same,” he said.

The Egypt-Eritrea-Somalia Alliance: A Strategic Counterbalance to Ethiopia

Dr. Mohamed ELDoh

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On October 10, 2024, the leaders of Egypt, Eritrea, and Somalia solidified their regional alliance, with a focus on countering Ethiopia’s influence in the Horn of Africa. The trilateral summit marked a significant development in the geopolitics of Eastern Africa, particularly in light of Ethiopia’s increasingly assertive actions in the region, such as its recent naval port deal with Somaliland in January 2024. The establishment of what appears to be an anti-Ethiopian alliance will have critical implications for the region’s security landscape, where the three nations are seeking to leverage their combined diplomatic and military efforts to curb Ethiopia’s ambitions.

These ambitions center around an interest in increasing its naval capabilities and, critically, Ethiopia gaining direct access to the Red Sea – a prospect that has long been a source of concern for Egypt, Somalia, and Eritrea, all of which have tended to view Ethiopia’s economic and military developments through a national security lens influenced by their own circumstance.

For Egypt, the overriding bilateral concern is a water conflict centered on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a mega-project that has an almost existential significance for Cairo in that it risks disrupting the Nile River’s flow and negatively impacting Egyptian agriculture and freshwater resources.

Israel Shouldn’t Suffer from the UN’s Failure in Lebanon

Enia Krivine & L Ben Cohen

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Israel revealed earlier this month that its troops had uncovered Hezbollah preparations for an October 7-style invasion and massacre in Israel’s northern communities. The Iran-backed terror organization has spent years building the infrastructure necessary to carry out such an attack under the nose of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.

Having failed to prevent Hezbollah from establishing military capabilities on Israel’s border, the 10,000-strong force is now complaining that it’s caught in the crossfire as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attempt to defang the terror organization.

In recent weeks, the IDF has stepped up its operations in Lebanon with the primary goal of safely returning the over 60,000 Israelis displaced from their homes in northern Israel by Hezbollah’s missile barrages. During its operations in southern Lebanon, the IDF has discovered a network of terror tunnels, Hezbollah weapons caches, and evidence of Hezbollah’s plans to invade the Jewish state.

China’s Agents of Chaos The Military Logic of Beijing’s Growing Partnership

Oriana Skylar Mastro

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At a joint press conference in June 2024, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg fretted over the strengthening ties between China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia. They are hardly the only politicians to have done so. The informal pact between these four autocracies has become a major focus in Washington, described by both Democratic and Republican officials as a new “axis of evil.” These countries, analysts point out, coordinate military and diplomatic activity. They have similar rhetoric and common interests. And they seem to share one aim above all: weakening the United States.

Each of these countries, by itself, has formidable capabilities. But China is the bloc’s central player. It has the biggest population and economy, and it doles out the most aid. Beijing is North Korea’s primary trade ally and benefactor. It has helped Iran contend with international sanctions, signing a “comprehensive strategic partnership” agreement with Tehran in 2021. And China has provided Russia with over $9 billion in dual-use items—goods with both commercial and military applications—since the latter’s invasion of Ukraine. This support has kept Russia’s economy from collapsing, despite Western sanctions aimed at crippling the country’s war effort. (Chinese goods now make up 38 percent of all imports into Russia.)

How to End the Democratic Recession

Larry Diamond

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On August 5, following weeks of mass student protests, a dictator fell in the world’s eighth most populous country. Amid wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the escalating danger of a wider conflict in the Middle East, and the twists and turns of the U.S. presidential race, the sudden resignation and flight into exile of Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, drew slight global attention. But the significance of her ouster could prove substantial. 

The Populist Phantom

Larry M. Bartels

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Many countries have been roiled in recent years by what is often called a “populist wave.” In the Anglophone world, this new era began in 2016 with the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom and the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Media and political elites shocked by these events tied themselves in knots trying to figure out what had happened and why. According to the most popular strand of this thinking, the Brexit vote and Trump’s victory were the reverberations of a profound economic and social transformation. Globalization and technological change had shattered the livelihoods of working-class people and eviscerated their communities, provoking a groundswell of anger and resentment, a populist rejection of the status quo and the political establishment. Since then, observers have been quick to find further evidence of the surging force of populism in an ever-lengthening list of countries, including Brazil, Hungary, India, Italy, and Sweden. An electoral surge for a supposedly populist party anywhere in the world renews the drumbeat of alarm that populism is submerging established party systems and, ominously, democracy itself.

And yet for all the alarm that populism has generated, its nature and political significance are widely misunderstood. The metaphor of a “populist wave” reflects this error. It exaggerates the electoral success of populism around the world, which has been rather more modest than it sometimes appears. It also exaggerates the coherence of populism as a political tendency, overlooking the extent to which ostensibly populist entrepreneurs in different times and places have appealed to distinct grievances. Even more important, the metaphor overstates the implications of populist parties’ electoral successes for policymaking and for democratic stability.

Whose Ronald Reagan?

Susan B. Glasser

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When the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and two George Bushes met in Milwaukee this summer to renominate former President Donald Trump, it was the first time Republicans had chosen the same candidate in three elections since Richard Nixon and the first time since the GOP’s founding in the nineteenth century that it had ever done so in three consecutive races. A large percentage of Republicans—around half of them, according to surveys conducted during Trump’s presidency—now consider themselves more supporters of him personally than of the party generally. They have followed Trump to places once unthinkable in American politics, from going along with his assault on the legitimacy of the 2020 election to the abandonment of what were until recently core GOP principles, such as support for free trade. The current Republican Party is in essence the Trump Party, a takeover made all the more remarkable considering Trump’s past as a party-switching political chameleon, with little discernible ideology beyond a relentless focus on self-promotion, and a lifelong suspicion that the United States has been a perpetual mark on the world stage, getting ripped off by grasping allies and adversaries alike.

Trump’s current political dominance of his party, however, coexists with a somewhat more complicated reality. When the Pew Research Center asked Americans last year to name the best presidents of recent decades, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents were almost evenly divided, between the 37 percent who favored Trump and the 41 percent who continued to believe that the honor should remain with Ronald Reagan, whose conservative revolution at the end of the Cold War reshaped Washington and his own party for a generation. The Trump takeover, it turns out, is not entirely complete.

US Navy Carriers Now Have “Unmanned Air Warfare Centers” to Launch Drones & CCAs

Kris Osborn

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The US Navy plans to fly “Combat Collaborative Aircraft” drones from its aircraft carriers in coming years, a possibility now within sight given the Navy’s successful operation of a first-of-its-kind carrier-integrated Unmanned Air Warfare Center.

The first operational Unmanned Air Warfare Center built into an aircraft carrier is, in the near term, intended to launch and operate the emerging MQ-25 Stingray refeuler drone, yet the service is also looking toward future missions for the UAWC.

‘These systems will initially support the MQ-25 but also future unmanned systems such as Collaborative Combat Aircraft that comprise the Air Wing of the Future,” Unmanned Carrier Aviation (PMA-268) Program Manager Capt. Daniel Fucito,” said in an interesting essay from Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR).

The arrival of the MQ-25 Stingray is both anticipated and significant, given the way it can massively extend the combat reach of carrier-launched fighter jets; yet beyond this, the prospect of launching Combat Collaborative Aircraft from carriers is forward-thinking and arguably more significant because it means carrier-launched drones can perform a much wider range of missions beyond refueling to include forward surveillance, aerial “node” relay sensing, ammunition and supply delivery across domains in high-threat environments and even strike missions when directed by a human in a manned jet or ship-based command and control center.

West needs to realize Ukraine cannot defeat Russia

Frank Ledwidge

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A friend of mine, usually an intensely optimistic pro-Ukraine analyst, returned from Ukraine last week and told me: “It’s like the German Army in January 1945.”

The Ukrainians are being driven back on all fronts – including in the Kursk province of Russia, which they had opened with much hope and fanfare in August. More importantly, they are running out of soldiers.

For most of 2024, Ukraine has been losing ground. This week, the town of Selidove in the western Donetsk region is being surrounded and, like Vuhledar earlier this month, is likely to fall in the next week or so – the only variable being how many Ukrainians will be lost in the process. Over the winter, the terrible prospect of a major battle to hold the strategically significant industrial town of Pokrovsk beckons.

Ultimately, this is not a war of territory but of attrition. The only resource that counts is soldiers – and here the calculus for Ukraine is not positive.

Ukraine claims to have “liquidated” nearly 700,000 Russian soldiers – with more than 120,000 killed and upwards of 500,000 injured. Its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, admitted in February this year to 31,000 Ukrainian fatalities, with no figure given for injured.

NATO vs. Russia: How to Ensure Conflict Is Avoided

Thomas E. Graham

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After the Ukraine Conflict, Competitive Coexistence is the Best Option: Being a great power lies at the center of Russian national identity. Even when Russia was weak compared to its rivals, Russian leaders continued to believe that their country was a great power, just one temporarily down on its luck. They did what they could to reassert Russia’s prerogatives as a great power on the world stage. This is exactly what Vladimir Putin did after he rose to power a quarter century ago at a time of economic collapse and political disarray in Russia. He has done that in large part by resisting what he sees as a U.S.-led effort to erode the foundations of Russian power.

For that reason, the outcome of Russia’s war against Ukraine, whether it is a win or loss, is unlikely to cause Putin, or his successors, to abandon his strategic ambitions, although he might adjust his tactics. Three developments that could change that assessment: a democratic breakthrough, the breakup of Russia, or its economic collapse. These are all remote possibilities.

Rather, Russia will likely remain a recognizable version of its historical self: authoritarian in domestic political structure, expansionist in foreign-policy impulse, economically and technologically lagging behind the world’s leading powers, yet determined to play the role of a great power. It will retain formidable assets to advance its goals, including one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals, significant space and cyber capabilities, the world’s largest endowment of natural resources, and a veto-wielding permanent seat on the UN Security Council. As a result, Russia will remain a serious challenge to the United States and NATO.

We’ve had the victory pictures; here’s how Israel is aiming to actually win the war

David Horovitz

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It was the elimination that Israel had desperately sought for a full year — arguably the ostensible victory picture: Yahya Sinwar, the primary figure in the most cataclysmic attack in the history of sovereign Israel, finally forced out of his tunnels into the open and killed by the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, his last moments and lifeless corpse there for all to see in the rubble to which he has reduced Gaza.

And the killing of Sinwar in Rafah last Wednesday was indeed an essential component in Israel’s necessary victory over Hamas — practically, in terms of his centrality to that terrorist-army-government bent on Israel’s destruction, and psychologically, in terms of Israel’s long climb out of the abyss into which Sinwar plunged us on October 7, 2023.

But his demise, as has been underlined every moment since it was confirmed, does not mark an absolute victory, does not complete a lasting, stable revival of Israeli security, and has not ended the war — not in Gaza, where the remains of Hamas continue to try to leverage the hostages to force an IDF withdrawal, and not on any of the other fronts from which Israel is being attacked.

Russia Pays North Korean Soldiers About $2,000 A Month

Taejun Kang

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Russia will pay North Korean troops about US$2,000 per month each, South Korea’s spy agency said on Wednesday, as the United States announced there was evidence that the troops were in Russia.

The salary paid by Moscow would represent an enormous increase. Last month, RFA Korean reported that the average salary for military personnel had increased 10-fold from between 100 and 300 won (.6 cents to 1.8 cents) to between 1,000 and 3,000 won (6 cents to 18 cents).

The Ukrainian government-run news platform United24 reported that it was likely that most of the money would “remain with the state.”

North Korea typically keeps most of the salaries paid to the workers it dispatches overseas, but it was not immediately clear how much of the $2,000 each soldier would actually receive.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, or NIS, said that more than 3,000 North Korean troops had been sent to Russia, with the total expected to reach 10,000 by December.

North Korea Sent 8 Million Artillery Shells to Ukraine. Next Up: Troops

Bruce Klingner

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North Korea’s dispatch of 1,500 special forces to Russia, as the vanguard of an estimated 12,000 troops to join Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, marks a significant evolution of Pyongyang’s evolving strategic partnership with Moscow.

North Korea’s action will prolong the conflict and could lead to greater Russian willingness to supply more sophisticated military technology to Pyongyang. South Korea will face greater pressure to respond, potentially by abandoning its reluctance to provide lethal aid directly to Ukraine.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) disclosed satellite imagery of North Korea transporting special forces to the Russian Far East via a Russian naval ship. It also obtained a video showing North Korean troops being issued Russian uniforms, equipment, and fake identification cards to disguise themselves as Russian units from Siberia.

North Korean forces fighting in Ukraine marks a major escalation of Pyongyang’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine and the first time it has deployed large-scale ground forces overseas. Previously, North Korea had limited its role to sending fighter pilots to participate in the Vietnam War, to fly for Egypt in the Yom Kippur War, and small units of military advisers and troops to Syria’s 2016 civil war.

NATO's New Challenge: The Uncertain Future of the Russian Military

Russell A. Berman

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Relief or Rancorous: How Much of a Threat Will Putin’s Russia Be to NATO After the Ukraine War?: At this point, we do not know how Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine will end, whether with a deserved full restoration of Ukrainian territorial sovereignty or a Russian victory over Kyiv. Perhaps there will be some compromise between those extremes. However, concerning future Russian relations with the West, the even more important question involves how the Russian foreign policy elite, whoever that is, will view the conclusion of the war.

Will territorial victory whet its appetite for more adventures? Will a crushing defeat leave it embittered and plotting for revenge? Or will it decide that it is time to find some realistic accommodation with the West? The prevailing mindset after the conclusion of the war will decide Russia’s future course. Unfortunately, the prospects for Russia remaining a threat in several theaters outweigh the likelihood of partnership.

First and foremost, Russia will remain a major nuclear power, while the West, especially the U.S., has let its strategic arsenal atrophy. Meanwhile, Russia participates in a de facto alliance with nuclear powers China and North Korea, and soon-to-be nuclear Iran. In contrast, America’s nuclear allies, France and England, are caught in a downward spiral of de facto deescalation, as their residual military capacity withers away.

What to Know About North Korea’s Military Capabilities

Choe Sang-Hun

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For decades, Pyongyang’s growing nuclear arsenal has generated headlines. Now, as thousands of North Korean soldiers pour into Russia to help it fight the war in Ukraine, a much older threat has become relevant again: North Korea’s massive conventional forces, one of the largest in the world.

North Korea is arguably the world’s most militarized country. Its state propaganda calls for “arming the whole population” and defending its leader, Kim Jong-un, as “human rifles and bombs.”

But decades of international sanctions have ravaged the economy in North Korea, which also suffered a famine in the 1990s. As a result, its conventional weapons remain decrepit leftovers from a bygone era when the Soviets helped Pyongyang build up its stocks of artillery shells and rockets. Its pilots seldom fly for a lack of jet fuel. Its army has trouble finding food, gasoline and spare parts.

At the same time, North Korean soldiers are required to serve for eight to 10 years, making them some of the longest-serving and most experienced conscripts in the world.

An Israeli Victory May Not Bring Peace

CARL BILDT

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With the death of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who planned the October 7, 2023, attack that triggered the Gaza war, an Israeli military triumph seems closer than ever. But could victory actually threaten Israel’s long-term future?

Can Europe Really Build Its Own DARPA?

LARS FRØLUND and FIONA MURRAY

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Europe’s waning competitiveness is once again in the spotlight. Addressing this long-standing problem will require, among other things, increased investment in the European economy’s capacity for innovation. To achieve that, recentreports by former Italian prime ministers Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta, and an April speech by French President Emmanuel Macron, have called for a European version of the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Most recently, an independent expert group, led by Manuel Heitor, echoed this appeal in the interim evaluation of the European Union’s “Horizon Europe” initiative.

The idea is hardly new. Macron first raised the issue in 2017, and economists have proposed DARPA clones to spur an industrial revival in Germany and accelerate the green transition. In fact, several such institutions already exist in the region, including the European Innovation Council (EIC), Germany’s Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation (SPRIN-D), and the United Kingdom’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA). But all have so far failed to realize the full potential of a European DARPA.

How the United States Can Win the Battery Race

Varun Sivaram and Noah Gordon

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The United States is squandering its best opportunity to compete in the global battery race. China jumped to a commanding lead in the last decade, controlling the supply chain for lithium-ion batteries, which power everything from cell phones, to military drones, to electric vehicles (EVs). By passing ambitious legislation under U.S. President Joe Biden, Washington has begun investing heavily in its domestic battery industry.

But even significant funding won’t get the job done if it isn’t directed at the right target: securing U.S. supremacy in next-generation technology, solid-state batteries. U.S. companies and research institutions are on the cusp of commercializing next-generation batteries that far surpass the performance of today’s lithium-ion batteries in safety, longevity, and energy density. And with scaled-up production, these batteries would eliminate dependence on Chinese-produced graphite.

Using Artificial Intelligence Is Easier Than You Think

Reece Rogers

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Ever since I watched the Disney Channel original movie Smart House as a kid, I’ve been fascinated by futuristic visions of technology in our daily lives. While writing about artificial intelligence tools and providing advice for using them at WIRED over the past two years, it’s become so clear to me that the software is nothing like it’s depicted in these sci-fi movies or what the hype-focused marketing materials from AI companies would have you believe.

Even with this in mind, I do still consider the current crop of generative AI tools to be sometimes useful, sometimes entertaining, and almost always a little frustrating.

And that belief was my driving motivation to write a second season of our AI Unlocked newsletter. It has been a passion project of mine over the past few months to work on this—chatting with experts in the field, trying out different tools, and soliciting reader responses to last year’s newsletter. The new season is focused on helping you experiment even more with AI tools, while staying realistic about their possibilities.

Honestly, I need to pause for a second and directly thank everyone who engaged with us about using AI. Between my inbox and the reader's responses to our survey, we heard from over 1,000 people and spent hours poring over every question, tip, and piece of feedback. That data served as the cornerstone for crafting season 2, and your input helped me become better at understanding your varied perspectives as WIRED readers. Overwhelmingly, readers seem interested in knowing how AI can help them with personal tasks, how they can build more confidence in prompt writing, and which new tools are worth experimenting with.

ISC2 Security Congress 2024: The Landscape of Nation-State Cyber Attacks

Megan Crouse

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CISA advisor Nicole Perlroth closed out ISC2 Security Congress’ keynotes with a wake-up call for security teams to watch for nation-state-sponsored attacks.

Today’s threat landscape includes nation-state actors as well as attackers looking to test their skills or turn a profit. AT ISC2 Security Conference in Las Vegas, CISA advisor and former New York Times cybersecurity journalist Nicole Perlroth took the stage to discuss what has changed over the last 10 years of cyber warfare. Her presentation was the capstone of the conference, held Oct. 13-16.

Nation-state attackers look for ‘target-rich, cyber-poor’ victims

Perlroth presented a timeline of nation-state attacks she covered throughout her journalism career, from 2011 to 2021. Barriers to entry for attackers have worsened since she began her career, with ransomware-as-a-service evolving into “a well-oiled economy.” The CrowdStrike outage showed how much a widespread attack could disrupt operations.

While it used to be conventional wisdom that the United States’ geographical location kept it isolated from many threats, “those oceans don’t exist anymore” when it comes to the cyber landscape, Perlroth said. Likewise, the digital “edge” has transformed into the world of the cloud, software as a service, and hybrid workforces.

Cyber meets warfare in real time

Andrew Borene

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Last month, a wave of simultaneous explosions, reportedly triggered by modified pager devices, tore through Hezbollah-controlled regions in Lebanon and Syria.

While these events have been attributed to a covert operation likely linked to Israel, their ramifications extend well beyond the immediate conflict. The pager explosions mark a significant convergence of geopolitical, cyber and physical security threats. They raise urgent questions about how outdated technologies can be weaponized in new ways, and they highlight vulnerabilities in supply chains that have implications for both governments and private sector enterprises.

This news is not just a Hezbollah-specific issue; any multinational enterprise or government that relies on complex supply chains is vulnerable to attacks.

The Hezbollah pager explosions are not just a footnote in a long-running regional conflict; they are a harbinger of a new type of warfare marked by the increasingly tight linkages between cyber and physical systems. Traditionally, warfare has been siloed into distinct domains — cyberattacks might aim to disrupt systems or steal data, while physical attacks sought to destroy infrastructure or cause bodily harm. Today, those lines are increasingly blurred. Last week’s sophisticated attack highlights the deep interconnectedness between cyber and physical domains in modern security, where a device as innocuous as a pager can become a lethal weapon through cyber manipulation.