161–170 of 623 posts
So taking down hospitals and healthcare facilities was fair game. But messing with Big Oil was just a step too far.
That shouldn't be a much of a surprise; the US has always aligned itself with protecting it's oil supply.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, if it's more expensive to prevent the attack than to pay the ransom, what's the point? ;)
Now that they've outed themselves as an easy mark, should be simple to hit them again and demand more money. At some point it'll be less expensive to improve their security infrastructure.
Still relevant
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27097966
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There is a theory floating about that some ransomware attacks were done purely to damage a country's infra and making money was a bonus, but not the main aim. So the perpetrators used ransomware as a front and the real goal is to destroy and disrupt a country's computer infra.
But then we could argue ransomware is just going to bolster and make our systems antifragile and resilient against such attacks in the future, so the ransomware attacks could backfire since in the future it would be much harder to attack the US for example with other types of malware.
It also means people are going to be storing mission critical and crown-jewels type data in airgapped systems and making filesystems read-only. The data would also be encrypted and compartmented into separate containers so attacks can't affect the whole filesystem if the airgap was breached.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it can be harder to trace, but the bigger problem is trying to turn it into cash, which is hard to do anonymously regardless of the currency used (BTc, XMR, etc). THe FBI,Secret Service, are mostly focused on the conversion of crypto to cash, not the intermediary steps.
doesn't work if the fiat converted to is in another jurisdiction
Most authorities around the world will want to nail you - and or your money - in cooperation with the US authorities (or otherwise for their own benefit). Once they know the US wants you, you become a toy to be used to some end, you're toast, your life is over.
It was a mistake to attack the business side of the oil company, because it created what could be sold as reasonable doubt to shut down the pipeline. As a result, the ransom had the optics of an attack on infrastructure. As evidenced by the coverage of Americans desperately filling up containers. This created the impetus for the US to treat this as an incident far and above the ambient ransomware activities leading u…
What are the sides of any company other than "business"?
DarkSide's English is incredibly good for some supposed Russians. It even has the correct use of the apostrophe in "clients'". I know nothing, but my hunch is that this was written by a well-educated person who grew up in the US or Canada.
DarkSide's English is incredibly good for some supposed Russians. It even has the correct use of the apostrophe in "clients'". I know nothing, but my hunch is that this was written by a well-educated person who grew up in the US or Canada.
As a native Russian speaker living in New York, I concur. I work in Ad Tech and deal with clients from Eastern Europe quite often. Russians' English is _always_ recognizable.
Seems like they should invest more into cybersecurity, if someone was able to “steal” their Bitcoin and take over their infrastructure ;). But honestly, this only shows that IT systems are nowadays so complex that you cannot get them right and be able to truly protect you, no matter if you’re good or bad guy.
It just takes one agent or informant on the inside to bring the whole house down.
But it’s really hard to build systems and organizations like that.
It was a mistake to attack the business side of the oil company, because it created what could be sold as reasonable doubt to shut down the pipeline. As a result, the ransom had the optics of an attack on infrastructure. As evidenced by the coverage of Americans desperately filling up containers. This created the impetus for the US to treat this as an incident far and above the ambient ransomware activities leading u…
Russia allows their FSB operatives to moonlight on the side. Darkside hackers could be government operatives and an attack on critical infrastructure is an act of war. It is the same as bombing the pipeline if infrastructure is disabled. I am sure the cyber insurance provider won’t pay and say it was an act of war by a foreign government. It always a grey area.
Looking forward to the day when someone proves there is nothing the state can do. But for now we have to watch these lackadaisical shit shows.