World's Biggest Cyber Attack Revealed to Have World's Dumbest Name
If you put something on a computer these days, you're basically "Here, hackers, have this." But who's doing all the hacking? The world's biggest hack attack has been revealed, and it's probably China. Welcome to... "Operation Shady Rat."
"Operation Shady Rat" hit 72 organizations worldwide over the past five years, including a number of U.S. government entities and defense contractors, the UN, the International Olympic Committee—basically everyone who you wouldn't want to be hacked. Shady Rat was just revealed in a report by internet security company McAfee, and security experts believe the attacks were coordinated by a single entity—probably China.
Chinese hackers, hacking everything! That's not really the most pressing issue, here. We need to immediately start thinking about new ways to name all of this hacking stuff. Operation Shady Rat may have been a clever play on a hacking software known as the "Remote Access Tool," but it sounds like the title of an episode of the classic 90s afternoon cartoon Duck Tails.
That's not the worst of it. A Vanity Fair article about Operation Shady Rat and other cyber-espionage attacks is a parade of cringe-worthy code names. For example, "Operation Night Dragon" is not a series of popular young adult fantasy novels. It's the code name for a coordinated hack attack against energy companies uncovered earlier this year. "Operation Titan Rain" targeted the Department of Defense. Not believing that "Titan Rain" accurately conveyed the true nerdiness of the situation, the attacks were rechristened "Byzantine Hades." This name apparently came from an NSA agent flipping his Dungeons and Dragons manual to a random page and putting his finger down.
If we're going to keep seeing reports of spectacular hacking attacks, we need to start coming up with sexier names. Like "Operation Brad Pitt with his Shirt Off" or something.
[Photo via Getty]