Fujifilm becomes the latest victim of a network-crippling ransomware attack • Hacker News Board

Re: Fujifilm becomes the latest victim of a network-crippling ransomware attack

#11

Post by hilbertseries » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 6:18 PM UTC

dillutedfixer wrote: post #6

slver wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like a law that makes it illegal to get raped. Many countries exist where that's actually how they deal with it. Reported rape does indeed drop. Emphasis on "reported". The fundamental problem is that you put blame on the victim and force them to "try harder". Trying harder in this case, against literally anyone in the world discovering one flaw in their system (and systems are never flawless). A more successful…

"A more successful approach would be eliminating the ability for anyone in the world to extort money anonymously from companies. Because without the motivation, the blackmailers have no reason to blackmail you. " While I agree in principal, that is quite a lofty goal. What are some of the ways you would suggest eliminating that ability?

Ban cryptocurrency in the US. The crypto market would immediately tank. Other western companies would likely follow suit. US sanctions can be issued against exchanges, if desired. Obviously cryptocurrency could still continue in this scenario, but transferring money from USD to crypto would be much more difficult. And the value of coins would be so low and probably continuing to fall that it wouldn’t be as appealing a means of ransom.

Re: Fujifilm becomes the latest victim of a network-crippling ransomware attack

#12

Post by dang » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 6:19 PM UTC

Other threads on this:

Unauthorized Access to Fujifilm Servers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27384084 - June 2021 (26 comments)

Ransomware – Unauthorized access to Fujifilm servers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27375401 - June 2021 (46 comments)

Fujifilm shuts down network after suspected ransomware attack - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27373455 - June 2021 (52 comments)

Re: Fujifilm becomes the latest victim of a network-crippling ransomware attack

#13

Post by MontyCarloHall » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

frumper wrote: post #10

slver wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like a law that makes it illegal to get raped. Many countries exist where that's actually how they deal with it. Reported rape does indeed drop. Emphasis on "reported". The fundamental problem is that you put blame on the victim and force them to "try harder". Trying harder in this case, against literally anyone in the world discovering one flaw in their system (and systems are never flawless). A more successful…

Ship 2 pounds of gold to a county that will happily accept bribes to not care and then we'll email you the keys to decrypt your network, otherwise we'll sell the data.

If that were the outcome of said legislation, it would make the barrier to entry for executing a ransomware attack much, much higher than it is today. Wouldn’t that be a successful outcome?

Re: Fujifilm becomes the latest victim of a network-crippling ransomware attack

#14

Post by labster » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 6:28 PM UTC

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #5

user3939382 wrote: post #2

Does anyone have any thoughts about the prospect of a law that makes it illegal to pay ransomware ransoms in general, across government and private industry? I wonder if such a law could be written without loopholes or ambiguity about data recovery.

More likely, it will lead to a governmental crackdown on cryptocurrency. If it were illegal for people to hold digital assets and impossible to exchange them for fiat currency except on black markets, cryptocurrency would lose pretty much all value and make ransomware worthless. For the record, I think this would be a bad idea, but it’s exactly the sort of governmental overreaction I’ve come to expect. I’ve sold off…

How is it an overreaction? It seems like its main purpose is to avoid government restrictions on importing money, but what it actually does is to destroy our environment so we can pay ransoms and build an asset bubble. I’d expect nations to react to threats to their security, especially for things that don’t offer any social benefit like cryptocoins.

Re: Fujifilm becomes the latest victim of a network-crippling ransomware attack

#15

Post by frumper » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #13

frumper wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ship 2 pounds of gold to a county that will happily accept bribes to not care and then we'll email you the keys to decrypt your network, otherwise we'll sell the data.

If that were the outcome of said legislation, it would make the barrier to entry for executing a ransomware attack much, much higher than it is today. Wouldn’t that be a successful outcome?

I don't think the barrier to entry is higher. You're just asking for them to send something physical, you don't have to do any extra work. I'm making an assumption that a lot of the current problems with ransomware originate from criminal gangs in countries that already look the other way. Maybe that is a poor assumption. A company could be less likely to mail cash instead of clicking a button though.

Re: Fujifilm becomes the latest victim of a network-crippling ransomware attack

#16

Post by MontyCarloHall » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

frumper wrote: post #15

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were the outcome of said legislation, it would make the barrier to entry for executing a ransomware attack much, much higher than it is today. Wouldn’t that be a successful outcome?

I don't think the barrier to entry is higher. You're just asking for them to send something physical, you don't have to do any extra work. I'm making an assumption that a lot of the current problems with ransomware originate from criminal gangs in countries that already look the other way. Maybe that is a poor assumption. A company could be less likely to mail cash instead of clicking a button though.

The barrier to entry is higher because the criminals need to be set up to anonymously receive an international shipment of physical currency/commodity. Apart from overcoming the logistical complexity of sending such a package (e.g. customs), the criminals would have to bribe the right officials to anonymize their physical address, which while not impossible is definitely a much higher barrier to entry than asking for cryptocurrency to be sent to some crypto wallet address, which any script kiddie can do.

Re: Fujifilm becomes the latest victim of a network-crippling ransomware attack

#17

Post by mechathor » Thu, Jun 03, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

I sympathize a lot with infrastructure and security teams at large(r) companies. They are constantly up against the opportunity cost of which security threats to fix first with the limited resources those teams often have. This is accompanied with needing to gracefully manage the political ripples of locking down systems that might disrupt other departments/business processes that were not initially designed with security in mind. I’ve seen firsthand the hot-headed director/VP who was hired on day one, who yells the loudest that they won’t make their sales target or some initiative is slowing their teams down, and crucial infra projects are delayed despite a well-articulated risk and threat assessment aiming to protect the company. All the while, the security experts in the room have their own jobs and teams they are trying to protect and not make the wrong move (and maybe get a ransomware attack) and get the whole team fired in the heat of the aftermath.

With more and more folks wanting to work from home, this further complicates the extant balancing act of how to securely give systems access to remote employees.