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Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5M in Ransom

bloomberg.com

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Re: Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5M in Ransom

#21

Post by tlb »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #9

Paying ransom should be illegal. Ransom funds illegal activities. Not indirectly, like buying coffee or poppyseed or whatever, but literally money that is directly reinvested in criminal activity- like ransomware.

It's as direct any other revenue => business activity connection. More direct than how buying coffee causes fields to be planted with coffee trees.

Of this $5M, expect $4M to be spent on salaries in the next year or 2, funding 20 person-years of malicious hacking. 20 skilled people paid to hurt the internet instead of building it up. A terrible crime.

Re: Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5M in Ransom

#23

Post by ben509 »

teruakohatu wrote: post #18
colinmhayes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ransoms would still be paid. We just wouldn't know about it. I think it's better to allow companies to be transparent.

The next group will want more than $5 million, and so on. If the lottery didnt allow advertising of big wins that were made, a lot less people would buy lottery tickets.

No, there's a hard upper limit on ransoms; the cost of recovery.

Re: Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5M in Ransom

#24

Post by rblatz »

tlb wrote: post #21
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #9

Paying ransom should be illegal. Ransom funds illegal activities. Not indirectly, like buying coffee or poppyseed or whatever, but literally money that is directly reinvested in criminal activity- like ransomware.

It's as direct any other revenue => business activity connection. More direct than how buying coffee causes fields to be planted with coffee trees. Of this $5M, expect $4M to be spent on salaries in the next year or 2, funding 20 person-years of malicious hacking. 20 skilled people paid to hurt the internet instead of building it up. A terrible crime.

Now we have one less critical piece of infrastructure that could be trivially knocked out by a hostile state.

Re: Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5M in Ransom

#25

Post by _tk_ »

Disclaimer: I work as a CISO in a large corporation. The interesting bit in this article is not necessarily the sum of the ransom, but that Colonial decided to pay quasi-immediately. It seems as if the attackers had full control over their network. Another possibility: Colonial staff could not be sure that if they used their backups, everything would be encrypted immediately again - possibly the backup servers as well. My bet would be on scenario 1.

Re: Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5M in Ransom

#26

Post by mikewarot »

ed25519FUUU wrote: post #2

“That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld, You never get rid of the Dane.” It’s going to be a tough few years being in security in the industrial control field for the next few years. https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/dane_geld.htm...

I was thinking that now is a good time to go INTO computer security, you now have a solid example to use justifying your actions.

In the past we worried about exfiltration of data, now we'll be worried about infiltration of control.

Re: Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5M in Ransom

#27

Post by bostonsre »

tommoor wrote: post #16
splithalf wrote: post #3

Every corporation in the US should be lobbying to abolish Bitcoin. It’s an existential threat that could be eliminated if they pooled their financial and political resources.

Bitcoin has nothing to do with this news? It seems like you have an unrelated axe to grind.

Not sure if I agree with the sentiment or not, but I think he has a point that crypto currencies can make paying ransoms to international ransomware gangs much easier. Using the traditional banking system would have been extremely difficult and have a low chance of success for that gang.

I could definitely see this reasoning being used as justification for anti crypto currency laws in the future.

Re: Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5M in Ransom

#28

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

rblatz wrote: post #24
tlb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's as direct any other revenue => business activity connection. More direct than how buying coffee causes fields to be planted with coffee trees. Of this $5M, expect $4M to be spent on salaries in the next year or 2, funding 20 person-years of malicious hacking. 20 skilled people paid to hurt the internet instead of building it up. A terrible crime.

Now we have one less critical piece of infrastructure that could be trivially knocked out by a hostile state.

How do you know that? What evidence is there that it's any more secure than it used to be?

Re: Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5M in Ransom

#29

Post by _tk_ »

drcode wrote: post #7

So they paid a penetration-testing firm a consultancy fee to help harden their network.

Could you elaborate on where you see the hardening taking place? Colonial had a threat actor in their network and by paying the ransom, they supposedly left without doing any more damage. I don’t think they patched a lot of systems or hardened their servers.

Re: Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5M in Ransom

#30

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

commandlinefan wrote: post #19
drcode wrote: post #7

So they paid a penetration-testing firm a consultancy fee to help harden their network.

Well, all we really know for sure is that they paid a penetration-testing firm a consultancy fee to identify where the network needs to be hardened. No guarantee they'll actually prioritize doing it.

Not even that.

Well, all we really know for sure is that they paid a penetration-testing firm a consultancy fee to identify THAT the network needs to be hardened.

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