Jeffrey Carr was working for Microsoft as a business analyst and blogging after-hours about the shadowy realm of intelligence analysis when war between Russia and Georgia broke out in 2008. At the behest of his readers in the intelligence community, Carr made a foray into their world, leading a successful crowdsourced project that determined the Russian government had been behind a series of hacks of Georgian websites. Since then Carr has started a digital security firm, Taia Global; written an authoritative overview of hack attacks, “Inside Cyber Warfare”; and become an adjunct professor at George Washington University, where he will teach a course on cyberconflict this year. With a rash of cyberattacks in the Middle East and U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warning of a possible “cyber Pearl Harbor,” Carr was in constant demand last year. DISCOVER reporter Valerie Ross spoke with him about the rapidly evolving global digital threat.
Stuxnet, the computer worm that damaged uranium centrifuges in Iran in 2010, was back in the news last year. Why is it so significant?
