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Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hacking Tool

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Re: Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hacking Tool

#201

Post by camus2 »

brilliantcode wrote: post #135

Isn't it peculiar that Russia remains the least hit or not even hit at all? It seems like the West was a clear target. Connecting the dots here, it's suffice to say Shadow Brokers serves Russian interests. We are seeing bullet holes from what seem to have been cyber warfare between the former cold war foes.

> Isn't it peculiar that Russia remains the least hit or not even hit at all?

Whatever, the situation in Russia when it comes to malware and viruses is no different from anywhere else in the world. People and businesses get their computers hacked or infected all the time. So please, spare us your conspiracy theories.

Re: Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hacking Tool

#202

Post by tmnvix »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #99
turnip123942 wrote: post #60

I think this is an excellent example that we can all reference the next time someone says that governments should be allowed to have backdoors to encryption etc. This shows that no agency is immune from leaks and when these tools fall into the wrong hands the results are truly catastrophic.

To be completely fair, it's not the NSA's fault that software has faults. Its the software manufacturers'. The ethical concern here is whether the NSA should have reported the holes to the manufacturers and the failure to handle its privileged knowledge in a safe manner.

> To be completely fair, it's not the NSA's fault that software has faults. Its the software manufacturers'.

While this is true, it doesn't address the point that you were responding to:

> this is an excellent example that we can all reference the next time someone says that governments should be allowed to have backdoors to encryption etc

...where "should be allowed to have" is interpreted as "should be given by software manufacturers".

Re: Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hacking Tool

#203

Post by Nexxxeh »

elorant wrote: post #18
RangerScience wrote: post #7

> "Microsoft rolled out a patch for the vulnerability last March, but hackers took advantage of the fact that vulnerable targets — particularly hospitals — had yet to update their systems." > "The malware was circulated by email; targets were sent an encrypted, compressed file that, once loaded, allowed the ransomware to infiltrate its targets." It sounds like the basic (?) security practices recommended by professio…

Well this justifies MS's decision for forced updates in Win10. Not that I like it, just saying.

The infection I'm dealing with happened from a fully-patched Win 10 Pro machine running Windows Defender and Outlook 2013 (32). It already had authenticated access to the files on the server it encrypted.

There was a Windows script file on the desktop, something like "UPS tracker.js", but it disappeared before I could grab it and a free space recovery didn't return it. (Possibly due to TRIM, it was on an SSD workstation.)

Re: Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hacking Tool

#204

Post by nradov »

devrandomguy wrote: post #187
eggbrain wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds like the basic (?) security practices recommended by professionals - keep systems up-to-date, pay attention to whether an email is suspicious - would have covered your network. This is secondhand information (so take it for what it's worth, there could be pieces I'm missing), but I talked with a startup that was focusing on this problem, and the issue was not quite the computers and servers that IT were u…

If it is infeasible to keep certain critical, networked device up to date, then I propose an alternative solution: those devices should only produce output, they should not read anything at all from their external ports. Their only input, should be their physical user interface. Would that work, for, say, an x-ray machine, or an MRI? We saw a fictional example of a scheme like this on Battlestar Galactica. Officers p…

In theory sure that could work. In practice it would raise healthcare costs even further due to the extra manual labor. So that's not going to happen.

Re: Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hacking Tool

#205

Post by devrandomguy »

Cakez0r wrote: post #153
lukaa wrote: post #144

Just use Linux and 90% of your problems with malware is history.Your own customization of kernel will make your even more secure.

Let's not pretend that Linux is invulnerable to the class of exploits that make this kind of malware possible [1]. Windows isn't a target because it's vulnerable (all software is vulnerable). Windows is targeted because it's widely used. If the majority of systems were using Linux, malware authors would simply adapt to write malware targeting Linux instead. [1] https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2016-7117

  all software is vulnerable
This is false, and spreads FUD. It does a great disservice to those who do meticulously maintain their systems, to those who sacrifice convenience and beauty for stability and security, to those who take the time to scrutinize other people's work. It is possible to build and deploy secure software.

Linux dominates the datacenter; we are a high value target, and have been for quite some time now.

Re: Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hacking Tool

#206

Post by nradov »

a2decrow wrote: post #165
pjc50 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely that's the point of hooking them up to the network, so you can e.g. get the pictures out of your CT scanner on to the doctor's PC?

The doctors' PC can run just fine on an isolated network and doesn't have to be connected to the internet.

No that wouldn't work. Modern healthcare is a team effort, especially for patients with complex conditions. Doctors must be able to collaborate with each other including securely sharing data across the Internet in order to deliver effective patient care. No one is going to give up on that just to prevent a few isolated security incidents.

Re: Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hacking Tool

#207

Post by bsder »

marcosdumay wrote: post #131
billharrison wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people still use USB drives to copy information to airgapped computers. It is easier than the alternatives.

Yes, they do. Yes, it easier. Yet, it completely undoes the "airgap" thing.

Security would be so much easier if it weren't for all these users ...

Re: Cyberattacks in 12 Nations Said to Use Leaked N.S.A. Hacking Tool

#208

Post by mschuster91 »

Apparently, this has spread to Deutsche Bahn...

1) a railway dispatcher just tweeted that IT systems will be shut down (https://twitter.com/lokfuehrer_tim/status/863139642488614912)

2) a journalist tweeted that an information display of DB fell victim to ransomware (https://twitter.com/Nick_Lange_/status/863132237822394369).

I guess that #1 and #2 are related, though.

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