A rather interesting case of mistaken identity: Stryker cyber-attack

A couple of weeks ago, I came across an interesting story on X, about medical-device manufacturer Stryker (full disclosure: I am a Stryker shareholder). It seems that an Iranian hacking group, in response to the US and Israeli attacks on its military and nuclear infrastructure, took down extensive Stryker internal systems, which essentially ran all its internal operations. The attack wiped thousands of individual devices throughout the international company, here and around the world. The article here describes the attack very well (Stryker has an outpost in the Seattle area).

I would like to take credit for recognizing the actual mistaken identity issue, but it was really Ray who did. As a maker of medical devices, Stryker has and had absolutely nothing to do with the war on Iran. But Ray pointed out to me that there is a connection, and that would be the Stryker military vehicle, which is manufactured by General Dynamics, another company in which I own shares. Here is one.

Ray and I figured that, in looking for American war-making companies to hack, the stupid Iranians didn't do any due diligence to make sure they were hacking the right target! I wrote about this on my blog.

So a company that does only good in the world, gets taken down for a stupid error by supposedly smart hackers.