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Massachusetts Steamship Authority hit by ransomware attack; ferries delayed

nbcboston.com

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Re: Massachusetts Steamship Authority hit by ransomware attack; ferries delayed

#171

Post by MattGaiser »

WalterBright wrote: post #162
MattGaiser wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an alternative question, how much is this worth stopping? As how much is being spent on these payments overall each year? How would that compare to the massive IT fortification project people are demanding? We don't meaningfully fight bike theft for this reason. The cost of doing so relative to the benefits is just too high. We can debate whether that is reasonable, but that is essentially what has been decided as…

> how much is this worth stopping? Having a physical write-enable switch on the backup devices costs about three cents.

And the guy required to set that all up is 100K.

Re: Massachusetts Steamship Authority hit by ransomware attack; ferries delayed

#173

Post by rsj_hn »

colechristensen wrote: post #169
uses wrote: post #91

I'd really like to see/hear/read a breakdown of some of related issues from some experts. Even on HN it's the same knee-jerk reactions every time one of these stories hit. This is one of the most pressing technology issues of this moment and the discourse just sucks. * Does banning ransom payments do anything? Good idea/bad idea? Historical analogues? * Do we need to pay rewards to cyber privateers to take down cyber…

Paying ransoms can be illegal if it is happening with a sanctioned entity. We need to start holding companies criminally liable having security vulnerabilities that get breached. It is true that there will always be exploits but the issues are usually much more wildly irresponsible security practices and not “didn’t know about the latest 0day” There needs to be a statutory liability to customers and required insuranc…

Curious, how do you know that you are paying ransom to a sanctioned entity? Do they publish lists of bitcoin addresses of sanctioned entities that you can check? If not, how do you check the identity of the payee?

Re: Massachusetts Steamship Authority hit by ransomware attack; ferries delayed

#174

Post by ncallaway »

sokoloff wrote: post #67
ghaff wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They possibly could but a lot of executives would probably prefer that their soon to be ex-company took a hit than that they became personally liable for breaking a federal law.

“We purchased security consulting services who were able to decrypt our ransomware-infected files. We’re not sure of the exact method they used but it worked.”

Lawmakers have dealt with this problem for a long time. It’s well solved.

If they wanted to prevent this kind of behavior there are two straightforward approaches:

- make it also illegal for the consulting company to pay a ransom.

- attach Strict Liability to any ransom payment, even if made through an intermediary. The executives quoted above from the paying company could still face criminal liability for such a payment disguised with plausible deniability https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability

Re: Massachusetts Steamship Authority hit by ransomware attack; ferries delayed

#175

Post by anonymousDan »

xkyf wrote: post #103
alksjdalkj wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another issue I don't see discussed much is how cryptocurrencies basically enable the business of ransomware. It's not like we're less secure than we were 20 years ago, the difference is now hackers can actually get paid.

That gets discussed every time, hackers were using prepaid cash services. Ransomware predates cryptocurrencies by decades.

Do you have evidence for this claim? I'm almost certain it's no longer true.

Re: Massachusetts Steamship Authority hit by ransomware attack; ferries delayed

#176

Post by king_magic »

Ransomware attacks against the United States should be met with covert assassinations against these hacking groups on foreign soil.

Enough of this insanity - these are acts of war, and those responsible should be dealt with through covert, proportional military strikes.

Re: Massachusetts Steamship Authority hit by ransomware attack; ferries delayed

#177

Post by ncallaway »

vecter wrote: post #154
owlbynight wrote: post #95

The US is going to end up tracking and assassinating these people, if we're not already. Messing with the old money usually doesn't turn out well for whoever's doing it.

Are there actual examples of the US "assassinating" bad actors in this way? That seems farfetched, as opposed to just going after them in the judicial system.

Operation Condor is a good starting point for some truly horrific US involvement in torture, terrorism, and targeted killing

Re: Massachusetts Steamship Authority hit by ransomware attack; ferries delayed

#178

Post by [deleted] »

not_kurt_godel wrote: post #23
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6

A federal ban on paying ransomeware would reduce the incentive to commit these attacks.

Would it? For some businesses, the reality is going to be that paying is necessary to continue to exist. What happens when that option, as crappy as it is, is off the table?

[deleted]

Re: Massachusetts Steamship Authority hit by ransomware attack; ferries delayed

#179

Post by rsj_hn »

MattGaiser wrote: post #119
nitrogen wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't meaningfully fight bike theft for this reason. And this erodes trust in society and rule of law, and gradually leads to vigilantism, privatization of security, and segregation due to middle-class flight from high-crime areas.

As I said, we can dislike it, but as a society we have basically decided that anything short of reasonably straightforward violent crime/extreme violent crime and high value property crime and easy to prosecute drug crime is not worth the effort. I don't disagree, but I hear very little discussion about low solve rates for smaller crimes.

> As I said, we can dislike it, but as a society we have basically decided that anything short of reasonably straightforward violent crime/extreme violent crime and high value property crime and easy to prosecute drug crime is not worth the effort.

No, I would say that a few counties have decided this, but the majority of counties have not. In most places, you do get arrested for property crimes, you still serve prison time for this, police still do things like use bait cars and exert resources to catch those who steal, and the idea that property crime should not result in jail time is not widely accepted by the majority of the population.

Re: Massachusetts Steamship Authority hit by ransomware attack; ferries delayed

#180

Post by f38zf5vdt »

alksjdalkj wrote: post #100
uses wrote: post #91

I'd really like to see/hear/read a breakdown of some of related issues from some experts. Even on HN it's the same knee-jerk reactions every time one of these stories hit. This is one of the most pressing technology issues of this moment and the discourse just sucks. * Does banning ransom payments do anything? Good idea/bad idea? Historical analogues? * Do we need to pay rewards to cyber privateers to take down cyber…

Another issue I don't see discussed much is how cryptocurrencies basically enable the business of ransomware. It's not like we're less secure than we were 20 years ago, the difference is now hackers can actually get paid.

This level of corporate hacking existed prior to cryptocurrencies, the difference is that it was used for stock market manipulation and profiting on short or long positions. It appears that this is even more profitable than ransomware, in the hundreds of millions or possibly even billions of dollars. [1][2]

[1] https://www.wired.com/2010/03/manipulated-stock-prices/ [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cybercybersecurity-hackin...

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