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Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#261

Post by forgingahead »

mc32 wrote: post #158
dwd wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could be said for radio, whether Orson Wells "Alien Invasion" broadcast or the multitude of April 1st jokes that got out of hand.

Apparently the "fallout" was an exaggeration that Orson went along with because it gave him more publicity. From the Wikipedia: >"The supposed panic was so tiny as to be practically immeasurable on the night of the broadcast. ... Radio had siphoned off advertising revenue from print during the Depression, badly damaging the newspaper industry. So the papers seized the opportunity presented by Welles’ program to discr…

Fascinating - thanks for sharing. Newspapers always play the same dirty tricks - they're doing the same now with the tech reporting because they're losing ad revenue to the tech companies.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#262

Post by mc32 »

nuclearnice1 wrote: post #218
mc32 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One difference is that these people are being accused by civil authorities --not some "rando" who moonlights as cyberpolice. He's not acting in an official capacity and doesn't have the imprimatur of the state.

I didn’t look closely but the first example I think is a non-state accusation. But interesting line to attempt to draw. I look at the media as a counter to the power of the state. So I worry about an arrangement where media can’t name people without state approval. But perhaps my view is archaic?

I get what you're saying but the state here is often the official record for things. These kinds of government records are open and searchable in most cases. And to some extent they answer to the governed. You can get a new DA, mayor, etc. You can't fire an internet sleuth.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#263

Post by ReganLaitila »

xyst wrote: post #200
twodave wrote: post #176

I'm sure it's been said before, but I just continue to be surprised that the admin panel used to carry out this attack wasn't locked behind a VPN. I've worked for multiple fully-remote companies that were easily able to protect tools like this from the outside world. The company I currently work for (fully remote) has tons of internal services that our engineers (who we trust) can access as needed in order to debug p…

Internal networks only accessible via VPN is considered an anti-pattern now in terms of security. It puts authorization firmly on the VPN. If the account with VPN access is compromised, then the attacker has full access to these sensitive systems. This hack probably underscores the importance of zero trust. Although if the system is compromised from within (like this hack is) then there is not much you can do.

I would be curious as to who is citing that using a vpn is some "anti-pattern", to what? Not protecting your network accessible assets?

If you have the means, certainly use a corporate/smb/personal vpn. It is one layer in a multitude of layers you should be using to protect your network.

Its not as if once you achieve vpn access you have no other authz gates to internal applications. Its a "great filter" to help narrow the possible avenues of attack and it works. If your inner layer of authz fails its not the vpn's fault.

Whats your alternative? Just make every application and network endpoint publicly accessibly on the internet?

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#264

Post by jeromegv »

mc32 wrote: post #158
dwd wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could be said for radio, whether Orson Wells "Alien Invasion" broadcast or the multitude of April 1st jokes that got out of hand.

Apparently the "fallout" was an exaggeration that Orson went along with because it gave him more publicity. From the Wikipedia: >"The supposed panic was so tiny as to be practically immeasurable on the night of the broadcast. ... Radio had siphoned off advertising revenue from print during the Depression, badly damaging the newspaper industry. So the papers seized the opportunity presented by Welles’ program to discr…

Radio Ambulante (NPR poscast) did an investigation on a similar story in Ecuador and it looks very much real. Not a myth.

https://radioambulante.org/en/translation/the-extraterrestri...

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#265

Post by gkop »

singhrac wrote: post #251
blisseyGo wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. Many people have auto-sell / buy triggers set up when something drops below a value.

I don't know about many . I don't know of any retail investors that do, and if I did I would have guessed that they'd be buying when prices drop, not selling.

Parent did say “sell / buy” (perhaps they ninja edited). A limit buy order is a basic tool of retail investors (like me :) ) and may have been what parent was thinking of. That said, I don’t agree with parent or great grandparent that the destructive impact is large.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#266

Post by murat124 »

ani-ani wrote: post #206
stopshills wrote: post #159

Funny that Krebs refers to Lucky225 as a longtime friend of Adrian Lamo. I thought it was very well-known that Lucky225 made that story up as a cover to hide the fact that he gained control of Adrian Lamo’s @6 Twitter via a SIM swap hack himself, and also took control of Lamo’s Facebook in order to hijack ownership of the 2600 Magazine group on Facebook.

Interesting. I looked for evidence supporting your claim and found this: https://github.com/keybase/keybase-issues/issues/3442 It's a very awkward thread where Lucky225 accidentally demonstrates that he has indeed taken over Adrian Lamo's email account. Note this doesn't say anything about whether they were or weren't friends. They definitely had overlapping interests.

Lamo died in '18, comment is from '19.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#267

Post by brisance »

blisseyGo wrote: post #69

I think people are still severely under-estimating how dangerous this was. Back in 2013 when The Associated Press was hacked with a tweet of "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured" and erased $136 billion in equity market value: Archive: http://archive.is/8lCMV https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/23... This twitter hack could have literally destroyed economies,…

Your point is well-taken, but to put things into perspective… $136 billion is a <1% move in Apple's market cap.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#269

Post by baddox »

mc32 wrote: post #162
phs318u wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is that really new? Other than scale and reach (quantitative difference), how is that any different qualitatively from the old grapevine/gossip network? "My dad's co-worker's, girlfriend's uncle works at ... and said..."

That didn't get disseminated and diffused to tens of millions. If something was published they'd look for official sources or corroborating sources and or secondary evidence. If AP, EFE, UPI, Kyodo, Interfax etc all get their news from one source [Twitter] that's just laziness.

“ A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on” has been a cliche for a hundred years. I don’t think internet social networks are a difference in kind, but they probably are a difference in degree.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#270

Post by computerex »

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #207
kleiba wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donald Trump?

A president can’t just “start a war”, muchless order air strikes. dozens of people are involved. Donald Trump yells and hollers all the time and people send Jared to calm him down. There have already been documented instances of this in the Trump admin, and it wasn’t over tweets.

The president has the power to deploy the armed forces abroad without the approval of congress for a period of time.
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