Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say
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Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say
#2For a long time it seems like these places have made things more secure by building fences, adding giant rocks, putting in lights and cameras, other physical security measures to keep threats off site. Hopefully at some point they will focus on the network side of things now. It's been obvious for at least a decade that one bad guy, or even a team of bad guys can take out a single location with a truck, but one bad guy or a team can take out a bunch of places with a computer. From what I've seen the utility industry has been defending against trucks.
Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say
#3I hate how this has for some reason been big news the past few days. One mediocre article came out about it, now it keeps getting regurgitated through other news sites. This is nothing new, the US infrastructure has likely been compromised for quite some time. Many of the very critical plants that hold the keys to keeping the lights on, water flowing, water treated, etc are mostly running on systems built pre 2000 that weren't built with security in mind. Many of these systems can not have security integrated with them, and they can not be replaced. The most you can do is cover it with as many blankets as you can (firewalls, extensive logging, behavior analytics, etc). The biggest question is not whether or not these facilities are compromised, it's whether or not a bad actor is going to use it for malicious purpose. It's one thing to shut down a website for the lols, it's another thing to overload a nuclear reactor and contaminate an entire chunk of the US.
Notice how the article is based entirely on "what ifs". >> "They got to the point where they could have thrown switches" >> "where they could have caused blackouts"
At this point it is a waiting game. Who is going to be the fellow to push the enter key on their keyboard that then causes a 7 digit number of people to go without power, clean water, or even be exposed to radiation? It's understandable that countries feud and people just don't like each other, but actually shutting down key infrastructure like these scenarios suggest is an end game move that establishes the point of no return in global conflict.
Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say
#4I hate how this has for some reason been big news the past few days. One mediocre article came out about it, now it keeps getting regurgitated through other news sites. This is nothing new, the US infrastructure has likely been compromised for quite some time. Many of the very critical plants that hold the keys to keeping the lights on, water flowing, water treated, etc are mostly running on systems built pre 2000 th…
> This is nothing new, the US infrastructure has likely been compromised for quite some time
Just because something isn't new doesn't mean it can't be news.
"The well is poisoned!"
"Bob noticed that last week. Why are you still talking about this?
"..."
It's being discussed now. Better late than never.
Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say
#5Calling using Telnet hacking is about as accurate as walking up to someone's unlocked computer and posting to their Facebook and then saying "you got hacked"
Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say
#6I sat in on this webinar and can say there was a few things misleading about this article. These networks were not “air-gapped” they were able to be accessed with lateral movement in the networks. Also they were able to detect them get get all the way to the point where they were able to flip the switch on the ICS. When asked later in the webinar why they didn't there was really no explanation as to why not even though that was their goal as the attackers. That is just fishy to me.
Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say
#7I hate how this has for some reason been big news the past few days. One mediocre article came out about it, now it keeps getting regurgitated through other news sites. This is nothing new, the US infrastructure has likely been compromised for quite some time. Many of the very critical plants that hold the keys to keeping the lights on, water flowing, water treated, etc are mostly running on systems built pre 2000 th…
“but actually shutting down key infrastructure like these scenarios suggest is an end game move that establishes the point of no return in global conflict.”
Sounds like you understand why then they’re reporting on this and regurgitating it over and over again. The public has the right to know if we’re on the brink of global conflict.
Nefarious actors are gaining privileged access to the power grid. Seems like a relevant thing to keep in the back of our minds in the event the power suddenly goes out.
Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say
#8I hate how this has for some reason been big news the past few days. One mediocre article came out about it, now it keeps getting regurgitated through other news sites. This is nothing new, the US infrastructure has likely been compromised for quite some time. Many of the very critical plants that hold the keys to keeping the lights on, water flowing, water treated, etc are mostly running on systems built pre 2000 th…
>The biggest question is not whether or not these facilities are compromised, it's whether or not a bad actor is going to use it for malicious purpose. It's one thing to shut down a website for the lols, it's another thing to overload a nuclear reactor and contaminate an entire chunk of the US.
This. Tons of stuff is compromised And if the Russians and Chinese are in our power plants we're in theirs too. Everyone can attack everyone else better than anyone can defend themselves. That's the nature of a highly asymmetrical form of warfare like that. Offense > defense (in the case of "cyber warfare").
>At this point it is a waiting game. Who is going to be the fellow to push the enter key on their keyboard that then causes a 7 digit number of people to go without power, clean water, or even be exposed to radiation?
Attribution is hard. Do you think the Israelis wouldn't attack us and make it look convincingly enough (for the talking heads and the general public) like Iran if it looked like our relations with Iran were about to thaw substantially in a way that was bad for them?
>It's understandable that countries feud and people just don't like each other, but actually shutting down key infrastructure like these scenarios suggest is an end game move that establishes the point of no return in global conflict.
Wars have started over a lot less. Nobody ever thinks what they're doing will be the final straw that starts the war.
Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say
#9I hate how this has for some reason been big news the past few days. One mediocre article came out about it, now it keeps getting regurgitated through other news sites. This is nothing new, the US infrastructure has likely been compromised for quite some time. Many of the very critical plants that hold the keys to keeping the lights on, water flowing, water treated, etc are mostly running on systems built pre 2000 th…
Things like Stuxnet show us that regardless of how true this story is or who in fact sponsored it, infrastructure compromise is a global game. I suspect this is part of what Russians are talking about when asking to negotiate on cyberwarfare. If this is indeed them, they may see such compromise operations as necessary for reciprocity for the NSA's known systemic compromise of systems around the world, which surely makes them feel threatened. A reciprocal compromise would allow them to respond tit-for-tat if attacked, and give them negotiating room for diplomatic resolution.
So let's hope it's correctly attributed and not some criminals with nothing to lose.
Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say
#10"russian" determined how?