11–20 of 119 posts
Don't put extremely sensitive information on the internet.
AP style should really push journalists to use the term "cybercriminals" over "hackers". I'm not the first to say it but the issue is growing, and it's only going to make the public more leery of any tech-minded but innocent kid or professional pentesting adult who uses the term "hacker".
AP style should really push journalists to use the term "cybercriminals" over "hackers". I'm not the first to say it but the issue is growing, and it's only going to make the public more leery of any tech-minded but innocent kid or professional pentesting adult who uses the term "hacker".
Journalists aren't that bright, they get confused at the difference.
Replace "cities" with "any organization that is not tech first" and you'll still find hundreds of win 7/vista/xp machines that have never been patched, and ad-hoc network closet/cloud hybrid rigged solutions for everything. There is literally no way to fix all this dumb fragile infrastructure without a massive government program that accepts responsibility for doing so. You need thousands of smart people going throug…
It's similar to working in infosec though. You do the pen tests, you find and identify the vulnerabilities and write up your report.
Then its up to the municipal entity to put whatever your recommendations are in place to fix what they found. I have a large number of friends in the community who say they can do the work and identify issues, but often times, they come back six months or a year later and stuff they highlighted as critical fixes were still not taken care of.
It's the old, "You can lead a horse to water. . " saying, right?
The real issue is how you implement these fixes on a continuous basis to keep the network safe?
Don't put extremely sensitive information on the internet.
On the other hand, we want digital public services, to be able to pay taxes electronically, to be able to vote electronically etc. I don't think the "don't put sensitive information on the Internet" idea really holds any water unless we expect our public services to be done with pen and paper for evermore, while everything else goes digital. (Yes, machines could be disconnected from the network and so on... but that'…
That's one thing we definitely shouldn't want. This case is just the latest proving what a bad idea that is.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, we want digital public services, to be able to pay taxes electronically, to be able to vote electronically etc. I don't think the "don't put sensitive information on the Internet" idea really holds any water unless we expect our public services to be done with pen and paper for evermore, while everything else goes digital. (Yes, machines could be disconnected from the network and so on... but that'…
But those things can be done without putting sensitive information on the internet. Crypto currency transactions can keep everything sensitive off the network. A one way airgap is indeed all you need (your device should be able to push data to the network but never receive any data from the network). The same scheme works for voting.
This is an oxymoron. If something can communicate, even only in 1 direction, its not airgapped.
Furthermore, theres no such thing as 1-way communication. Any DB that houses info can only provide it in response to a query.
AP style should really push journalists to use the term "cybercriminals" over "hackers". I'm not the first to say it but the issue is growing, and it's only going to make the public more leery of any tech-minded but innocent kid or professional pentesting adult who uses the term "hacker".
Journalists aren't that bright, they get confused at the difference.
Replace "cities" with "any organization that is not tech first" and you'll still find hundreds of win 7/vista/xp machines that have never been patched, and ad-hoc network closet/cloud hybrid rigged solutions for everything. There is literally no way to fix all this dumb fragile infrastructure without a massive government program that accepts responsibility for doing so. You need thousands of smart people going throug…
Telling a company "The government says you have to patch and is offering to do it for you" seems like it might not go over quite as well as you might hope. I can already see the first thought - "Do they actually care if all my systems work the way I need them to afterwards?". Having worked in Information Security and offered to fix things for people, my experience is that entities going for this is extremely rare, even when it's just the next department over.
As for the NSA, well, getting them into a proactive posture is a wonderful idea! It's such a good idea that the US government decided you were right decades ago. And acted accordingly. This tends not to make the news, so many people are understandably ignorant. For example, the NSA publishes information assurance best practices: https://apps.nsa.gov/iaarchive/library/ia-guidance/ia-standa...
Don't put extremely sensitive information on the internet.
This is more of a "don't let various government agencies neglect their infrastructure while hosting extremely sensitive information about you" sort of situation. Really the bigger concern is that a ton of infrastructure is at risk of getting held hostage.
AP style should really push journalists to use the term "cybercriminals" over "hackers". I'm not the first to say it but the issue is growing, and it's only going to make the public more leery of any tech-minded but innocent kid or professional pentesting adult who uses the term "hacker".
Journalists aren't that bright, they get confused at the difference.
It's a bit too easy to simply write off ALL journalists (no pun intended) as "not that bright".
You may as well say most people aren't that bright. Which would be equally unfair.
Likewise, how can you stick a small-town reporter who covers highschool basketball in the same list as a New York Times reporter with an Ivy League background in economics? Make no mistake, I'm not implying the latter is somehow superior to the former, but there is a huge range between the people who make up the journalism industry.