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By Alfred Rolington

Cyber attacks on Iran have been well publicised in the press and on Western television. General William Shelton, a top American cyber general, has now turned these attacks around saying that these events are giving Iran a strategic and tactical cyber advantage creating a very serious “force to be reckoned with.”

Since 2010, Iran’s infrastructure has been attacked hundreds of times by cyber viruses. To date the most documented and best known cyber attacks have been aimed at Iran and are known as cyber worms called Stuxnet. These electronic worms were used to attack Iranian nuclear power plants and connected systems. General Shelton, who heads up Air Force Space Command and Air Force cyber operations, gave a briefing to reporters in January 2013, where he said that the 2010 Stuxnet virus attack on Iran’s Natanz uranium processing plant had generated considered responses from Iran that have led to improved offensive and defensive cyber-capabilities.

In December 2012, the Stuxnet virus returned and hit computer and energy operations and companies in the southern Hormozgan region. Shelton claimed that Iran’s improved cyber defense capability had helped Iran protect it against subsequent attacks on oil terminals and other manufacturing plants. This new capability, he believed, will subsequently be used by Iran against its enemies in the near future. “They are going to be a force to be reckoned with,” said General Shelton, “with the potential capabilities that they will develop over the years.” At present he stated that America had over six thousand cyber specialists employed to monitor, analyse and counter cyber attacks, and he was intending to employ another thousand specialists over the next twelve months to improve America’s effectiveness in this vital area.

Moreover, assassinations and assassination attempts in conjunction with cyber attacks are thought to be part of an integrated plan of attacks on Iran’s nuclear research and manufacturing capabilities. A year ago on 11 January 2012, Ahmadi Roshan, a 32-year-old Iranian scientist, and his driver were both killed when a motorcyclist attached a bomb to their car as they were driving. So far these attacks, which seem to form part of the broader cyber-related strategy aimed at Iran’s nuclear program, have successfully killed five Iranian nuclear scientists in the last two years according to FARS, a Tehran news agency. However, in January 2013, the Iranian Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi claimed that his organisation had stopped a number of attempts to kill nuclear scientists so it is uncertain which reports are accurate.

These attacks on Iran’s electronic systems represent only a very small amount of the current cyber attack and threat capability. Increasingly, all governments and corporations must respond to the cyber reality. With an interconnected world, cyber attacks on infrastructure have become frequent and damaging. Cyber crime is costing businesses billions of pounds although they tend to keep quiet about the attacks. (The BBC reported that UK cyber crime costs £27bn a year.) Efforts to get a grip on the problem had been hampered by firms who don’t want to admit they had been the victims of attacks for fear of “reputational damage”. Baroness Neville-Jones, Prime Minister David Cameron, and Foreign Secretary William Hague met the bosses of some of Britain’s biggest businesses, including Barclays, HSBC, Tesco and BA, to urge them to take the problem more seriously.

In September 2012, a hacker called vorVzakone posted a message on a Russian online forum saying that a malevolent Trojan, called Project Blitzkrieg, was capable of attacking the American financial industry, that it had already critically affected up to five hundred American targets, and that it had stolen over five million dollars. “This attack combines both a technical, innovative backend with the tactics of a successful, organized cybercrime movement,” a McAfee report explained, adding that the next target would probably be investment banks.

Hackers, apparently working independently as criminal gangs, have grown in their specialization faster than most police and government intelligence organisations would have believed possible. Yet cyber hackers working for governments have targeted everything from computer systems to power plants from the US to Iran, Europe to China, Australia and beyond. These civil servant hackers are often employed by governments to help fulfill a strategy, to change information and publicity, or to gain information and bring systems down.

One example comes from Ray Boisvert, who recently retired from the post of Assistant Director of Intelligence for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. He believes the current capabilities of most governments is not enough to counter the current cyber threats. He said that cyber threats were fundamentally undermining Canada’s “future prosperity as a nation.” He stated there is a lack of response on three levels. First from government and corporate policy-makers who do not, in his opinion, understand the technical complexities of digital telecommunications security. Second the government has not invested enough to protect Canada’s communications and electricity systems from cyber attacks. Third, he thought there was an inherent corporate shortsightedness regarding protecting Canada’s communications infrastructure.

The cyber issue is growing and will become a rising threat to governments and corporations. It may require a serious attack such as a massive electricity system shut down before a full government response is played out.

Alfred Rolington is the author of Strategic Intelligence for the 21st Century: The Mosaic Method, an industry insider’s assessment of current intelligence methods and offers a new strategic model, directed toward the police, military, and intelligence agencies. He was formerly CEO of Jane’s Information Group, responsible for such publications as Jane’s Defense Review and Jane’s Police Review, as well as CEO for Oxford Analytica. He has over thirty years’ experience of analytical publishing and media companies, producing information and intelligence for commerce, law enforcement, the, military and government. He has written about and given lectures on intelligence and strategic planning to Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard Universities, and to organisations such as Thomson Reuters, the CIA, SIS (MI6), NATO Headquarters, and GCHQ.

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Image credits: Information Systems Technician 2nd Class Ryan Allshouse uses the intrusion detection system to monitor unclassified network activity from the automated data processing workspace. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons;  Maps and charts are scanned from “Atlas of the Middle East”, published in January 1993 by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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First, here are a couple more pics I made for the Beauty & Beast boutique in Monsterville. These will pin up next to the mirror where people (and monsters) will go for their fancy wig fittings.



And here's a little tailor chappie to greet you when you come into Beauty & Beast. It's sort of like those funny gentlemen shops you find on Jermyn Street with big shaving brushes and shoe-horns. Except it also sells Marie Antoinette alien wigs.



It's funny, I'm not much of an expert on gentlemen's fashion, and I keep thinking, if I had more time, I'd love to get in three illustrators who know loads about this kind of thing. They would be my dean from art college Christopher Sharrock, Philip Reeve and David Roberts. These guys know everything about men's fashion, ha ha. Oh...Hurrah! I just saw that David Roberts finally got himself a website! I'm bookmarking it to go back and have a long look. David's attention to clothing detail - well, everything, really - is AMAZING.


Christopher Sharrock, David Roberts (I couldn't find a good full-outfit photo so one of his characters is standing in for him), Philip Reeve

So you can come see my monster boutique Lolliplops old-fashioned soda fountain and ice scream shop. And the other fab stuff Ed Vere and Neal Layton have been coming up with! Here are the details:

Welcome to Monsterville - FREE OPEN DAY - Sat, 28 May - All day
***To ensure a space on events please call 020 8536 5555 to pre-book.***

Set off a Monster Bank Holiday by coming along to the FREE launch of Welcome to Monsterville with the brilliant Sarah McIntyre (Morris the Mankiest Monster), Neal Layton (Emily Browne and the Thing) and Ed Vere (Mr Big).

11.30am 0+ Mini Monsters: Enjoy Story time for babies and toddlers in our Story Glade in the garden (inside if wet!)

1 & 2.30pm 5+ Monstrous Trail: Our Story Builders will take visitors on a tour around Monsterville - can you spot all the monsters lurking in the shadows? Are you up to the challenges and games?

12 - 12.45pm 4+ Ed Vere: Author of Mr Big and The Getaway will be coming along to delight us with live drawing we can join in with. Introducing us to his new book Bedtime for Monsters and telling us how he came up with his monster creations for Welcome to Monsterville.

1-145pm 4+ Sarah McIntyre: Fabulous illustrator Sarah McIntyre will be reading from her absolutely disgusting book Morris the Mankiest Monster and talking about how she created Monsterville's Lolliplops Cafe and Beauty and Beast Salon.

2.30pm 4+ Monster Draw-off: Monsterville makers Ed Vere, Sarah McIntyre will be drawing to become the most despicable champion monster creator of all time. Who will fashion the most terrible creature? Who will you vote for ?

3.30pm 4+ Neal Layton: Join Neal Layton illustrator extraordinaire as he shows of his sketchbooks and talks us through how he produced his amazing range of monsters for Welcome to Monsterville. Discover's Story Builders will then present Emily Brown and the Thing.

Monster Top Trumps: Drop into this event and draw your own monster, decide what their special pow

On Wednesday evening I went up to Cambridge to celebrate the launch of Good Dog, Bad Dog by the remarkable Dave Shelton. Hurrah!



Fellow DFC creator Emma Vieceli showing off her signed copy. Good Dog, Bad Dog kicks off the start of a whole amazing new range of books, called The DFC Library, and I'm thrilled to be a part of it when my Vern and Lettuce book comes out in the autumn.


I had a big fan-girl moment when I met for the first time the illustrator and master engraver John Lawrence. (You can read a Guardian article about him here.) He taught at my art college, Camberwell, for thirty years and his presence really lingered about the place, in the print rooms and particularly downstairs in the letterpress studio, where they had one of his pictures on the tiled wall and the man who ran the presses spoke almost reverently about him. In the middle stands our fab publisher, David Fickling, and to his right, Alexis Deacon, creator of Slow Loris, Beegu, While You were Sleeping and Jitterbug Jam.




Here's Dave Shelton giving his launch speech:


DFC team Emma Vieceli, Woodrow Phoenix, publicist Lauren Bennett and me:



Don't miss the next book in the series, which comes out today! It's Mezolith, a stone-age graphic novel by Adam Brockbank and Ben Haggarty.

And the inhabitants were friendly! Stuart and I headed up to Scotland for our first-ever visit to the Highlands International Comics Expo or Hi-Ex. It was also Stuart's first experience of running a festival table, and I think he's still decompressing from the strange voyage.

Photo thanks to Joe Gordon (whom I met in person for the first time, yay!) at Forbidden Planet International

Here's a comics jam I did with DFC crewmates Jim Medway, Dave Shelton and Gary Northfield.
(Click on pic to embiggen)



Hi-Ex had some great photo ops, here's Dave, Jim and Gary:



And after months of only managing to grab a few rushed words in passing with Asia Alfasi, I finally got to have a long chat with her in Jimmy Chung's Chinese restaurant, hurrah! She'd been drawing portraits all day, but I talked her into doing one more with me and we swapped.


Gary and I led a workshop called Stupidmonsters & Aliens: comics from outer space. (Stupidmonsters is a mini comic Gary did awhile back.)

(Click to enlarge)

Here's a picture from the workshop and another book of comic strips a guy brought in that he'd made:



Here are Ishara and Freya with their alien pictures; these gals spent 18 hours on a coach to get from Bath to Hi-Ex. that's dedication!


Gary, Jim, Dave and I did several comics jams right at our table with some of the visitors. This one's by Jim, me and a girl named Amy.

Here's a fab example of four people making three panels: Amy did the first, Jim did the second, I inked the third and Fiona coloured it in. The other one has panel borders by Jim and comics by the beautifully face-painted visitor.



Jim Medway's table and his alien:

Here's an amazing cat picture I got from Jim, which reminds me of some very old Russian woodcut pictures. I'm totally going to treasure this one.

Congratulations to Dave Shelton on the launch today of Good Dog, Bad Dog! You may remember the comic strip running in the Guardian newspaper and in the DFC... now it's a book! It's the very first in the DFC Library series, and you can read a preview of it here.



Thanks to Forbidden Planet International for their wonderful support for the DFC Library! Let's all support this series, we need to see some growth in British comics and this is a fresh new start. Random House will be watching sales like a hawk to see if it's worth their while to keep publishing new comics, and I hope they get very, very excited when they see how these fly off the shelves and see reviews appearing blogs all over the world. Thanks for giving us a brilliant start, Dave!

(Look for Good Dog, Bad Dog in your local comics shop, or you can buy it on Amazon here.)

The other day I went for sushi in Soho with the marvellous Emma Vieceli and magnificent John Aggs. Our DFC characters, John's Robot Girl, Emma's Violet and my buddies Vern and Lettuce came along, too. (We didn't invite the bunnies, they just showed up.) Robot Girl was a right pain in the backside.



Here's Emma showing off her first cheque from Marvel Comics (with Spiderman on the envelope!) and a peek at John's sketchbook:



Speaking of the DFC, did you know that the first book in the DFC Library series is coming out... NEXT WEEK?!!!!!!! It's Good Dog, Bad Dog by the unimitable Dave Shelton (the only person I've seen with sketchbooks to rival John's, they should totally have a sketchbook battle) and it's going to be FABULOUS!!! And guess what, you can even preview pages here!



Go ahead and join the DFC Library on Twitter and pre-order your copy of Good Dog, Bad Dog here!

The rest of us DFC people are really, really hoping you'll support the first six books in the series because Random House will be watching sales like a hawk to see if this whole comics series thing's worth doing. And that's a no-brainer, YES, it is!!! Spread the word, comics lovers, librarians, teachers, anyone who likes brilliant stories!

Yesterday a bunch of us from The DFC gang met up in David Fickling's Oxford office to find out what's happening with some of the amazing comics that appeared during the DFC's 43-week appearance. And the news is good! While The DFC as a weekly magazine has been shelved for the time being, readers are going to be able to read whole collections of their favourite strips, in individual books. The first three to appear will be Dave Shelton's Good Dog, Bad Dog (which ran in The Guardian), Kate Brown's Spider Moon (which ran as a play by Playbox Theatre company, photos here), and artist Adam Brockbank (who designed many of the beasts in the Harry Potter films) and storyteller Ben Haggarty's Mezolith.



David Fickling was hugely excited at the meeting, saying he was gearing up to become the lead comic book publisher in the UK, and wants David Fickling Books to take on the huge comics industry in France and elsewhere. So here's the deal: He says it's going to be a struggle, because as of yet with the top retailers, no real comics market yet exists in the UK, so we're really going to have to push to create one. He's going to print 5,000 hardback copies of each of the three books, and we really need to sell all of them so we can afford to go on and bring out more books. So if you want a Vern and Lettuce book in the second round (and boy, oh boy, do I!), please get ready to support these three books and convince everyone you know to buy them, and get everywhere you can think of to stock them! We'll have an overarching DFC Library launch, and then fab events at the launch of each, with Good Dog, Bad Dog being the first to come out in March, then Mezolith and Spider Moon in April and May. (You can even pre-order them on Amazon here!)

Just as we were all meeting, Tilda the office manager, came in with a letter than had just arrived in the post, from a DFC reader named Samira who, even after all these months, was still dead set on seeing her favourite comics in print, whatever it took (Thanks, Samira!):




Here's a few photos from the DFB headquarters yesterday:


David and Will Fickling; editor Hannah Featherstone, Adam Brockbank and Will



Lauren Bennett (the fab publicist I've been working with on Morris the Mankiest Monster) and me; Ben Haggarty


Clare Hall-Craggs, publicity director at Random House Children's Books, and the very messy table at th