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LockBit claims to exfiltrate 33TB of data from US Federal Reserve

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Re: LockBit claims to exfiltrate 33TB of data from US Federal Reserve

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're one of the most powerful, and one of the most scrutinized. Keeping them insulated from political pressure is incredibly important. Otherwise you end up with a monetary policy of "drastically cut rates right before the election to protect the incumbent".

> "drastically cut rates right before the election to protect the incumbent". They're not immune to political pressure. They really should be raising rates again (housing prices going up, stock market at all time highs, inflation still not under control) and aren't for exactly that reason.

The shit that would be heaved on both the equity and bond markets if the Fed hiked rates at this point is quite possibly Biblical. I'm not disputing that the pain is better now than later - and it may be the case here as well (I don't know, I'm a trader not an economist). My view is that rate hikes aren't really warranted at this point. Inflation is still high but many of the core measures are finally starting to show signs of improvement. The question at this point is whether the Fed can justify cutting this year or only in '25.

The other side of the coin is that if the Fed hiked now, half the country would be up in arms that the Fed basically assassinated the Biden administration. I think the Fed is not in the wrong of waiting a bit, at least until after the elections. Then if inflation starts coming off, well there's nothing for them to do, and if it doesn't, they can do it without so much fuss from politicians.

Hell, if Trump wins, he might be in the lucky position of claiming that he singlehandedly fixed everything and allowed the Fed to start cutting rates :D

Re: LockBit claims to exfiltrate 33TB of data from US Federal Reserve

#32
post #8

If this is real, this is an incredible target to choose. I mean, you might not make it trial if they catch you, if you know what I mean. Makes me wonder what level of affiliation or perceived safety would make anyone this confident.

I don't think the federal reserve has that many deep dark secrets. The main risk is going to be stuff like knowing that a bank is in trouble before it's public knowledge.

The Fed runs several payment systems so in theory all the transfers sent through there could be a part of this leak.

Re: LockBit claims to exfiltrate 33TB of data from US Federal Reserve

#33
post #11

What data does the Fed actually deal with? The article mentions "Americans' banking secrets" as if the risk is to individuals but ... to oversee banks, does it need the particulars of individual account holders? Or is this information about banks and their overnight borrowing (i.e. should be "American banks' secrets")? Or is this like, pending drafts of various policy reports and granular data from which summaries wo…

Transactions above $10k get reported. Reported to who? Is it the Fed? If that data got stolen, that would be enormous. If it's technical analysis data ("In October 1957, Idaho produced X tons of potatoes..."), then it's less interesting.

> Reported to who?

Department of Homeland Security, I imagine. Probably the IRS too. Probably not the Fed, they can't really do anything with the data other than report it to someone else.

Re: LockBit claims to exfiltrate 33TB of data from US Federal Reserve

#34
post #11

What data does the Fed actually deal with? The article mentions "Americans' banking secrets" as if the risk is to individuals but ... to oversee banks, does it need the particulars of individual account holders? Or is this information about banks and their overnight borrowing (i.e. should be "American banks' secrets")? Or is this like, pending drafts of various policy reports and granular data from which summaries wo…

Transactions above $10k get reported. Reported to who? Is it the Fed? If that data got stolen, that would be enormous. If it's technical analysis data ("In October 1957, Idaho produced X tons of potatoes..."), then it's less interesting.

SARs are reported to FinCEN, which is part of the Treasury, not Fed.

Re: LockBit claims to exfiltrate 33TB of data from US Federal Reserve

#35
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the federal reserve has that many deep dark secrets. The main risk is going to be stuff like knowing that a bank is in trouble before it's public knowledge.

The Fed runs several payment systems so in theory all the transfers sent through there could be a part of this leak.

I'd be _extremely_ surprised if they managed to pop the payment systems.

Re: LockBit claims to exfiltrate 33TB of data from US Federal Reserve

#36
post #9

Placing a bet this was a Windows system, just as all of the other recent major "hacks" were.

Heart bleed, Log4J, triangulation, spectre, rowhammer, almost every single website hack, every single social engineer attack, only by chance xz… Yea. Windows sucks, but that is often off topic.

I think most of the things you listed weren't really used in the wild, at least not at scale?

Re: LockBit claims to exfiltrate 33TB of data from US Federal Reserve

#38
post #4

[flagged]

I'm not sure that people see it as moral, so much as boring. We're not expecting to hear "Exclusive: The cocaine-fuelled prostitution orgy where Bernanke and Greenspan agreed to remove dress shirts from the basket of goods used to measure inflation, replacing them with streaming video services and triggering a rise in the base rate from 5.25% to 5.5%"

Agree - that kind of story is more for the English politicians then the Fed.

Re: LockBit claims to exfiltrate 33TB of data from US Federal Reserve

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're one of the most powerful, and one of the most scrutinized. Keeping them insulated from political pressure is incredibly important. Otherwise you end up with a monetary policy of "drastically cut rates right before the election to protect the incumbent".

If they are not beholden to the political incumbent, they will be beholden to a shadow org of conflicting interests. And this shadow org away from public spotlight is the problem

[deleted]

Re: LockBit claims to exfiltrate 33TB of data from US Federal Reserve

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The use of "many" in such contexts by journalists (and human/AI entities who choose to write like journalists, as in this case) is a shim used to make personal opinion seem more objective.

And we can definitely rely on plurality of professionals. There were many (almost all) journalists and intelligence professionals that claimed the Hunter Laptop was not real… except of course it was and entered into evidence in his gun trail and conviction recently.

The "story" was that Joe Biden had pushed Ukraine to protect Hunter Biden [1], and there was no evidence found to support that claim at all, despite multiple investigations from the FBI as well as both chambers of Congress [2].

The only thing that turned out to be true and actually criminal was that Hunter Biden acquired a gun while forbidden from doing so, for which he was recently convicted.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controvers...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biden%E2%80%93Ukraine_conspira...

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