The weekly read

A blurring of lines
US News and World Report
Dec. 16, 2014

Starting in late November, a new form of warfare was unleashed on Sony Pictures and Entertainment from an unidentified source. This attack didn't involve a single bullet, smart bomb or main battle tank. Instead, it was a cyber attack on a non-governmental entity to preemptively stop the release of the movie the Interview.

The movie at the heart of the cyber attack

The entity behind the cyber attack has been linked to the North Korean regime, and has caused Sony and numerous theater chains to delay the release of the movie due to the threat of violence against moviegoers.

This article, written by Eric Schnurer, postulates that we may have just witnessed the first shots in a new kind of 21st century warfare. As public information officers, it is critical for us to explore the potential repercussions of this new type of attack on both private and public computer servers. As we all know with the proliferation of Internet technology and social media to get our message out, our contingency plans need to consider what would happen if these crucial links to our citizens are lost - or even worse - taken over by some malevolent actor seeking to turn our tools against us.

Tom Iovino, Public Information Specialist
Pinellas County, Florida
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomiovino