Why I Don't Worry About Cyberattacks (for the most part) || Aug 3, 2026
Following the cyberattacks in Minnesota, many have reached out regarding cyber threats from a national security perspective.
Most successful cyberattacks don't target critical national infrastructure; they go after individual organizations. Thanks to the decentralized cybersecurity model adopted by the U.S., there is no single system an attacker can compromise to cripple the entire country.
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Comments (24)
how can I send Peter a question?
What Bryan Becker said. But, a few words about the decades-long bugbear of hostile attacks on SCADA networks (water systems, Hoover Dam, etc.): Basic IT competence requires enforced airgapping of them, period. No "firewalls", no wifi. Zero cross-connection, enforced by active probing for disallowed routing. If the bad guys break into a SCADA LAN, management has been more stupid than usual. To quote an old joke's punchline, "Well, Don't Do That, Then." More here: https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/117039100981660513 (That should evade any undocumented Patreon length limit.)
Peter. If you want to talk reality on cyber security, I’m happy to help. I do this for a living. The internet is basically twine string and duct tape. No one is attacking the encryption other than the NSA. And even they are mirroring traffic and not cracking and encryption. They attack the endpoint and the human. If they cant attack the endpoint or the human, they’re attacking open source software supply chains such that when and software upgrades, they are infected across multiple orgs. AI is capable of stringing together low end vulnerabilities to bypass most defenses. Long story short, im talking about energy security infra in Houston because most wells and midstream jnfrasrurcure is old and discoverable on Shodan.
What's going on with "Comment hidden"? Is it an (undisclosed) comment length limit? As this topic's in my professional wheelhouse, I wrote a comment that I gather is one of those "hidden", thoough it was substantive and certainly had nothing problematic in it.
Peter, you seriously need to have somebody edit these and cut out the wind noise in the low frequencies. It’s basically on watchable and you do these outdoor ones and the scenery is great but the ambient noise and no editing happening to remove the noise is really amateurish. I’m sorry if you can’t get someone to process this appropriately for the service that you’re providing I’m gonna probably have to stop being a subscriber at the $15 a month level.
Count no chickens.
It sounds like the next war will be digital, AI fighting AI.
Subsequent to Peter's podcast date and time news reports show that the control software was linked to the internet and that's clearly idiotic systems management. Further, the password on the water systems control software used was left as the default, which goes beyond idiotic and is the definition of negligence. Even if two thirds of software hacks are permitted through human failure that still leaves one-third where at least a minimum of IT awareness and management has responsibility to their consumers for protection of their services. This was a failure of IT management and overall general management for lack of alomst any level of protection.
1. "news reports show that the control software was linked to the internet and that's clearly idiotic systems management." Amen! Rule 1 is Maintain A Good Firewall. 2. "Further, the password on the water systems control software used was left as the default, which goes beyond idiotic and is the definition of negligence." Double amen! Much of what makes the Internet of Things into the Internet of Sh*t is due to people who don't bother to secure their IoT systems by changing the damned passwords.
When someone names their project Mythos, they are telling you they are exaggerating from reality to myth.
My main concern is when I read AI may be used by the Armed Forces. On an individual unit level this doesn't worry me so much as if it's used in decision-making for say a nuclear attack/response (War Games anyone?)
Interesting video on US cyber security. I've never heard a positive thing about it. Basically make things so varied so they can't attack the whole of it.
Peter, you talked about small nuclear reactors before, it seems like there was a breakthrough in Idaho recently, care to comment how this will help America?
Don't believe anything Open AI or Anthropic says about their LLMs going rogue. What I have read it's more like they gave it a task a then did an incompetent job of sand boxing. Also, HuggingFaces network security was a joke.
I believe Peter speaks the truth here. I used to fear some catastrophic cyber attack on our banking system and/or power grid that would bring our country to its knees, but the more I learn about how these systems work, the less worried I am. I think if Russia or Iran had the capability, they would've done so already. Same with Israel. They've proven to be the most ingenious when it comes to this sort of stuff (pagers anyone?) and extremely capable. If they could've knocked out Iran, they would've. I lurk in the Prepper communities online sometimes, which used to make me way more afraid of this sort of stuff (and EMPs), but I really do believe those fears are overblown. The real threat to society is the Idiocracy moment that we find ourselves in, not attacks from external bad actors.
Good banks have private networks
Mythos can and has found many vulnerabilities, but it can't patch them without breaking a half dozen other things in the process. In fact, there is a mountain of known vulnerabilities from the past decade, or longer, that haven't been patch because the time and effort it takes to fix these things is a huge undertaking that requires testing in closed system environments, tiered rollouts and around the clock monitoring when you do release it to the wider world. Remember the whole Crowdstrike kerfuffle that shut down the airlines a couple of years ago? That's what happens when you do it the wrong way.
I wonder what Peter meant with couple hundred dollars worth encryption device? Anyone got a product link or so on, I would appreciate it as I am curious. Is it for companies that have in-house servers? Don't most businesses host their databases and servers with cloud service providers like AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Azure from Microsoft? I think these services already provide encryption and data backups
I think he was referring to devices/software that HACKERS can buy for a few hundred dollars. In other words, hacking is easy and prolific these days. For my business, I make sure I have multiple forms of backup (cloud, external hard drives).
A friend of mine is a retired NSA tech and his NDA recently expired along with a few other papers that have become public. If even half of what he's told us about the offensive strategies started back in the 80s are true, then I agree with Peter as it basically aligns with those stories. the NSA has encryptions so well buried into base systems they are watching cyber-attacks from the inside.
Don't F**k with the NSA or the military guys. They are gooood !
Ciberdefense...... Talk with the Chinese. They have that Big Firewall..... ;-)
We’re going to build a wall… and China’s going to pay for it.
mm-hmm ... 🤓... okay Peter ... 😊 🥱 🐈