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Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

politico.com

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Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#111

Post by pmoriarty »

curiousllama wrote: post #91
gen220 wrote: post #7

Bit of a misleading title by Reuters. They accessed the business networks of the NNSA, the agency responsible for maintaining the nuclear stockpile, but did not access the networks managing the actual nuclear weapons, as the title half-implies. There was no threat of random nuclear weapon exploits, those networks have not been compromised as far as we know.

Yea, also, who would build a nuclear bomb that could be detonated via the internet? I would be outright shocked if there wasn’t a mechanical part of the process... eg, in the early days, they literally had the warhead and bomb parts physically separated

"I would be outright shocked if there wasn’t a mechanical part of the process"

More shocking things have happened, like the nuclear launch codes being "00000000" for 15 years:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nuclear-missile-code-00000000...

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#112

Post by unclekev »

dvduval wrote: post #50

I have to wonder how many corporations have been hacked but we will never know, because they are worried about the value of their stock. This could actually be a much greater threat to hobbling our infrastructure or blackmailing wealthy people to do their bidding.

I worked for a company that had all their Customer data stolen and then sold on a darknet market place.

They completely swept it under the rug, told the infosec guys that if they talked about the incident with anyone they would have their employment terminated and that it was to never be discussed because they were worried about their share price.

We also have laws here in Australia that says if this happens to a business it mandatory to disclose the breach to your customers.

> you must notify affected individuals and us when a data breach involving personal information is likely to result in serious harm.

A employee anonymously reported the breach to the government agency that handles this, who in turn contacted the business with a "Please explain. Right now."

The next day after they were contacted they fired every single IT department staff member. Helpdesk, Infosec, Networks... All fired, because they couldn't figure out who reported it.

Nothing ever happened to the business as they somehow convinced the government that the data that was stolen was "made up junk data used for testing" despite it being obviously clear that it was current customer info.

This crap happens all the time and businesses are continued to be allowed to get away with hiding breaches from people.

All it does is help the share price and disadvantage the customers.

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#114

Post by anonymouse008 »

emptyparadise wrote: post #46

Oops your launch codes have been encrypted! What Happened to My Nuclear Deterrent? Your abort codes are encrypted and your nuclear arsenal has been placed at DEFCON level 1. Many of your ICBMs, submarines, launch silos, bombers and other facilities are no longer accessible because their communication channels have been encrypted. Maybe you are busy looking for a way to cancel the launch, but do not waste your time. N…

This would be a pretty wild explanation for the run on BTC recently

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#115

Post by nappy »

marcusverus wrote: post #92
gen220 wrote: post #7

Bit of a misleading title by Reuters. They accessed the business networks of the NNSA, the agency responsible for maintaining the nuclear stockpile, but did not access the networks managing the actual nuclear weapons, as the title half-implies. There was no threat of random nuclear weapon exploits, those networks have not been compromised as far as we know.

There is an odd quirk in our culture, where lying is universally acknowledged to be toxic behavior, but the use of intentionally misleading language is merely frowned upon--as long as it doesn't contain a falsifiable claim. But this is really a distinction without a difference, as they achieve the same goal, which is to put an idea in the mind of the listener/reader which the speaker/writer knows to be false. After a…

"liars in practice" is uncharitable at best. A headline has some maximum number of words, and there is only so much that can be conveyed. "Technically true" is strong standard to meet in under a sentence. Is this purposefully misleading? I would say no.

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#116

Post by dang »

gen220 wrote: post #7

Bit of a misleading title by Reuters. They accessed the business networks of the NNSA, the agency responsible for maintaining the nuclear stockpile, but did not access the networks managing the actual nuclear weapons, as the title half-implies. There was no threat of random nuclear weapon exploits, those networks have not been compromised as far as we know.

(We've since changed the URL and the title, which used to be "U.S. has evidence hackers accessed its nuclear networks")

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#119

Post by CapriciousCptl »

Given the scope of the attack I think it’s reasonable to assume all high value targets were compromised in someway. It’s more a matter of what specifically was compromised, what data was exfiltrated, how much of the attack was offline, are Thunder going to start breaking a as la stuxnet etc.

Re: Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

#120

Post by dang »

ineedasername wrote: post #32
traes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that it's impossible to tell if you're mildly upset at the current state of this post or asking a mod to change it.

That's the beauty of it: many invocations of "dang" in HN will be done for both reasons. I don't know the origin of that username, but it's grown into it's role.

That is the origin. It seems to have held up pretty well.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7494093

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22767267

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