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Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

arstechnica.com

251–260 of 463 posts

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#251

I'm just amused how these people were even hired to begin with ? They don't seem to be Americans? How were they even allowed to work on sensitive systems? Why was this even allowed? So many questions. At 4:58 pm, he wiped out a Department of Homeland Security database using the command “DROP DATABASE dhsproddb.” At 4:59 pm, he asked an AI tool, “How do i clear system logs from SQL servers after deleting databases?” H…

[flagged]

That was not AT ALL what was implied and you know it.

I too am shocked at the level of federal access that was afforded to these non-Americans that clearly also hold a disdain for the country.

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#252
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first option is flipping one switch. The second option is flipping some switches now, and flipping the rest later. Of course the safest (first) option is the correct option from a liability standpoint, which is all a company should operate on since it's first responsibility is to protect the company for those that are still there. There's plenty of ways to communicate with ex-colleagues that don't involve company…

Let’s not forget the third option: proper security practices and principle of least privilege. No one should have been able to do this in the first place. Why were they able to get plaintext passwords with a simple query? Why did they have delete permissions on production db tables? Why were they able to modify system logs and delete backups?

[deleted]

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#253

> [Opexus] said that “the individuals responsible for hiring the twins are no longer employed by Opexus.” Getting close to the classic Monty Python line: "Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked." Jokes aside, stuff like this sucks because I suspect many employers will take from it the most extreme, dehumanizing lessons, e.g.: (a) make firings [edit: including lay-offs] as…

When you are talking about access like they had "make firings as abrupt as possible including terminating all access immediately" not doing this is incompetence. This is absolutely a standard and has to be for these kinds of positions. I've never worked anywhere where it wasn't for the majority of IT staff. You meet with HR, someone clears your desk, and security walks you out.

Last time I was laid off they let me keep my laptop for the rest of the day. I gave it to them immediately to avoid any accusations of sabotage.

Eventually I tried to log into one of my old cloud accounts, to find it was only disabled since 9 days after my layoff. Pretty sloppy.

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not sure there's any good way to lay off large amounts of staff Someone on HN once wrote that after the dot.com bust, Yahoo! HR had 1-1 meetings with every single employee that was part of the mass layoffs back then, and they did this for hundreds of workers. Boy what I wouldn't give to go back to such state of affairs, even though I wasn't yet part of the workforce back then. An older family friend of mine who…

Either your dates or experiences are off, because I've been working in software since 1999 and the easiest time to get a job was quite recent, in the back-half of COVID. The early 2000's were decent, but I didn't experience - or know anyone who did - any sort of "free jobs' period. Also pay was relatively decent but much less than what you saw even 5 years ago. It's only the in the past year or so that the world has…

Annecdata: 1996-1999 was super easy, one round start next Monday. 2000-2003 difficult. Easy again until 2008. Hard till 2013. No data since then.

What I hear about today seems crazy hard.

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never had a job with a permanent individual desk like this. The one in-person real job I had, it was only shared working space that different people used at different times of the day or on different days, and I think you were discouraged from leaving anything. The idea of there being "your desk" with a framed photo of your kids and favorite coffee mug seems like a nearly extinct piece of nostalgia. It must have…

May I ask how long you've been working? I'm in my early 40s, and I've never had a job where we've "hot-desked" like that, even when a company was out-growing an office.

2017 I believe.

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At 4:59 pm, he asked an AI tool, “How do i clear system logs from SQL servers after deleting databases?” He later asked, “How do you clear all event and application logs from Microsoft windows server 2012?” So many red flags, I can't even.

> In the space of a single hour, Muneeb deleted around 96 databases with US government information. He downloaded 1,805 files belonging to the EEOC and stashed them on a USB drive, then grabbed federal tax information for at least 450 people. Maybe whoever runs infosec at that place should also be fired?

Elon's brother's landscaper's nephew's girlfriend was sacked along with Elon, so nobody was filling that role in the government.

Which MAGAts applaud. Emptying the swamp!

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#257
post #55

How did they get access to 5k passwords? Are they being sent/stored in cleartext? This is the most baffling part of the article for me. The second part I'm unclear about is how you could pass SOC2 when you aren't terminating account access simultaneously with the employment termination.

And how exactly do you want to store passwords if not in plain text (and then encrypted of course)? 5k is a lot, the authorization process is broken, but this is not related to how the passwords are stored. The only solution is correct access segregation and a bastion

You don't store passwords.

You store safely crafted hashes.

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#258
These are the cases why I understand HR kicks people out immediately during a layoff. But then the employee cries inhumanity and desires that they have access for weeks, when they no longer need to. It’s a risk that’s proven unwise. Blame the layoff, not the access revocation

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#259
post #156

> [Opexus] said that “the individuals responsible for hiring the twins are no longer employed by Opexus.” Getting close to the classic Monty Python line: "Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked." Jokes aside, stuff like this sucks because I suspect many employers will take from it the most extreme, dehumanizing lessons, e.g.: (a) make firings [edit: including lay-offs] as…

Terminating access and rotating passwords (if needed) while the person is in the meeting but has not yet found out they are being let go has been SOP for at least the last 20 years

I've turned off my own access at least three times when being let go from different jobs

Re: Twin brothers wipe 96 government databases minutes after being fired

#260
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either your dates or experiences are off, because I've been working in software since 1999 and the easiest time to get a job was quite recent, in the back-half of COVID. The early 2000's were decent, but I didn't experience - or know anyone who did - any sort of "free jobs' period. Also pay was relatively decent but much less than what you saw even 5 years ago. It's only the in the past year or so that the world has…

Annecdata: 1996-1999 was super easy, one round start next Monday. 2000-2003 difficult. Easy again until 2008. Hard till 2013. No data since then. What I hear about today seems crazy hard.

2004-2007 was hard for me in my experience.
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