The cyber arms race

Published: May 14, 2019, 8:12 a.m.

Was the NotPetya attack, that struck Ukraine and then the world in 2016, a portend of potentially devastating cyber-wars in the future? Ed Butler goes back to ground zero of that sophisticated cyber attack to speak to Oleh Derevianko of the Ukrainian cybersecurity firm ISSP, and Valentyn Petrov who heads Ukraine's information security service. How did a piece of malware allegedly designed by Russia to devastate the Ukrainian economy go on to infect the computers of multinational corporations such as shipping firm Maersk and pharmaceutical Merck? Are such state sponsored attacks becoming more commonplace? And why has Russia - widely accused of being one of the worst perpetrators of such attacks - just passed new legislation to defend itself from a cyber attack in the future? We hear from Bryan Sartin, head of global security at US telecoms conglomerate Verizon, and Emily Taylor of the international relations think tank Chatham House. (Picture: Malicious computer programming code in the shape of a skull; Credit: solarseven/Getty Images)