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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

#11

Post by blakesterz »

insensible wrote: post #9
Rotdhizon wrote: post #3

I 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 ma…

"So let's hope it's correctly attributed and not some criminals with nothing to lose."

This indeed. We can only hope it's the pros!

Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say

#13

Post by notveryrational »

Russia's cyber military is James Bond level cool. There are speculations (nobody can prove it) that they set up their own TOR using onion-like proxies, with a custom crypto protocol, over Shodan-discovered endpoints, through a clever use of tunneling through UPNP systems on the internet, with incredible OPSEC - even burning the whole infrastructure several years after it was discovered.

Some day we'll get uncensored versions of these Ops disclosed by the various governments that run them and get to read about the research facilities and intense personalities that run them.

Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say

#14

Post by gepi79 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #8
Rotdhizon wrote: post #3

I 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…

I agree except for the last point.

The most aggressive states are USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UK and France while being (morally) supported by NATO allies.

They engage in overt and secret warfare because they can in order to meet some objective. They do not engage in war because they were attacked.

Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say

#15

Post by pnathan »

Really? It'd be surprising if they hadn't.

I'd expect utilities to be one of the softest targets out there, based on prior interaction with the industry...

edit: About 8-10 years ago I used to collect news articles, reports to congress, etc, about ICS (industrial control systems, the superset of utilities) being hacked. It was regular, comprehensive, and depressing. The ICS industry was running 15-20 years behind in grasping the fact that hacking could be a problem. Think 1990 era security mindsets in 2010.

Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say

#16

Post by ilovetux »

gepi79 wrote: post #14
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I agree except for the last point. The most aggressive states are USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UK and France while being (morally) supported by NATO allies. They engage in overt and secret warfare because they can in order to meet some objective. They do not engage in war because they were attacked.

[citation needed]?

Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say

#17

Post by mannykannot »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #3

I 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.

> Notice how the article is based entirely on "what ifs".

Doing something about the compromise issue would make your biggest question correspondingly less speculative, which is a good reason for discussing the scope for compromise, no matter how much you hate it.

Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say

#18

Post by ryanmercer »

pnathan wrote: post #15

Really? It'd be surprising if they hadn't. I'd expect utilities to be one of the softest targets out there, based on prior interaction with the industry... edit: About 8-10 years ago I used to collect news articles, reports to congress, etc, about ICS (industrial control systems, the superset of utilities) being hacked. It was regular, comprehensive, and depressing. The ICS industry was running 15-20 years behind in…

>Really? It'd be surprising if they hadn't.

Ding ding ding. PLA Unit 61398, Bureau 121, Unit 8200, Fancy Bear... doesn't surprise me if all of them have any variety of ways into our infrastructure.

Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say

#19

Post by indrax »

ilovetux wrote: post #16
gepi79 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree except for the last point. The most aggressive states are USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UK and France while being (morally) supported by NATO allies. They engage in overt and secret warfare because they can in order to meet some objective. They do not engage in war because they were attacked.

[citation needed]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

Re: Russian Hackers Reach US Utility Control Rooms, Homeland Security Officials Say

#20

Post by ilovetux »

indrax wrote: post #19
ilovetux wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

So, had to re-read that article just in case there was new information, but even if all the speculation is true (probably) this does not support the claim that USA, Israel, Saudi Arabia, UK and France are the most aggressive cyber-combatants. Stuxnet was a targeted attack which accomplished a defensive goal. It is also unlikely that Saudi Arabia, the UK nor France had anything to do with this attack nor are there any claims of NATO support for the development of Stuxnet.

Meanwhile Russia is actively targeting political systems worldwide through social media and misinformation while also stockpiling latent backdoors and probably more.

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