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Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

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Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#461

Post by mensetmanusman »

jacquesm wrote: post #266
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no government should keep critical data on foreign cloud storage Primary? No. Back-up? These guys couldn’t provision a back-up for their on-site data. Why do you think it was competently encrypted?

They fucked up, that much is clear but the should not have kept that data on foreign cloud storage regardless. It's not like there are only two choices here.

They should have kept encrypted data somewhere else. If they know how to use encryption, it doesn’t matter where. Some people use stenographic backup on YouTube even.

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#462

Post by hackernewds »

aio2 wrote: post #52

Funny, because the same thing happened in Nepal a few weeks ago. Protestors/rioters burned some government buildings, along with the tech infrastructure within them, so now almost all electronic data is gone.

Not sure where you got that info. only physical documents were burned (intentionally by the incumbents you could argue) however the digital backups were untouched

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#463

Post by keepamovin »

mattmaroon wrote: post #401
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this whole thing smells. Who has the incentive to do this, though? China/North Korea? Or someone in South Korea trying to cover up how bad they messed up? Does adding this additional mess on top mean they looked like they messed up less ? (And for that to be true, how horrifically bad does the hack have to be?)

It might be different “they”s. Putting on my tinfoil hat, whoever was going to be in hot water over the hack burns it down and now the blame shifts from them to whoever manages G-drive and don’t have a backup plan. Not saying I believe this (or even know enough to have an opinion), but it’s always important to not anthropomorphize a large organization. The government isn’t one person (even in totalitarian societies)…

If there was shady behavior, I doubt it’s about a cyber hack. More likely probably the current administration covering their tracks after their purges.

Alternate hypothesis: cloud storage provided doing the hard sell. Hahaha :)

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#464

Post by kumarvvr »

kristianc wrote: post #95

The government official who insisted that commercial AWS/GCP/Azure couldn't possibly be trusted with keeping the information will be keeping their head low for a few days then... "The Interior Ministry explained that while most systems at the Daejeon data center are backed up daily to separate equipment within the same center and to a physically remote backup facility, the G-Drive’s structure did not allow for extern…

> The government official who insisted that commercial AWS/GCP/Azure couldn't possibly be trusted with keeping the information will be keeping their head low for a few days then...

They absolutely cannot be trusted, especially sensitive govt. data. Can you imagine the US state department getting their hands on compromising data on Korean politicians?

Its like handing over the govt. to US interests wholesale.

That they did not choose to keep the backup, and then another, at different physical locations is a valuable lesson, and must lead to even better design the next time.

But the solution is not to keep it in US hands.

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#465

Post by mensetmanusman »

shakna wrote: post #186
stogot wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? If the region is in country, encrypted, and with proven security attestations validated by third parties, a backup to a cloud storage would be incredibly wise. Otherwise we might end up reading an article about a fire burning down a single data center

Microsoft has already testified that the American government maintains access to their data centres, in all regions. It likely applies to all American cloud companies. America is not a stable ally, and has a history of spying on friends. So unless the whole of your backup is encrypted offline, and you trust the NSA to never break the encryption you chose, its a national security risk.

Spies play one of the most important roles in global security.

People who don’t know history think spying on allies is bad.

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#466

Post by Tempest1981 »

solarengineer wrote: post #438
almostgotcaught wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My (rudimentary, layman) understanding is that encryption is almost like a last line of defense and should never be assumed to be unbreakable Lol this is woefully misinformed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-quantum_cryptography It is my understanding that current encrypted content can someday be decrypted.

Yep, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvest_now,_decrypt_later

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#467

Post by bradly »

rr808 wrote: post #451
kristianc wrote: post #95

The government official who insisted that commercial AWS/GCP/Azure couldn't possibly be trusted with keeping the information will be keeping their head low for a few days then... "The Interior Ministry explained that while most systems at the Daejeon data center are backed up daily to separate equipment within the same center and to a physically remote backup facility, the G-Drive’s structure did not allow for extern…

There is some data privacy requirement in SK where application servers and data have to remain in the country. I worked for a big global bank and we had 4 main instances of our application: Americas, EMEA, Asia and South Korea.

When I worked on Apple Maps infra South Korea required all servers be in South Korea.

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#468

Post by cindyllm »

makeitdouble wrote: post #418
spoaceman7777 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may want to familiarize yourself more with the culture around this in places like South Korea and Japan.

It can be posed as shame on the front side. More often than not the suicide covers a whole organization's dirty laundry. You'll have people drunk and driving their cars over cliffs [0], low profile actors ending their life as shit hits the fan [0] etc. Then some on the lower rank might still end their life to spare their family financially (insurance money) or because they're just so done with it all, which I'd put m…

[dead]

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#469

Post by Diti »

hackernewds wrote: post #458
throwaway2037 wrote: post #372

At the very bottom of the article, I see this notice: > This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom. I like that. It is direct and honest. I'm fine with people using LLMs for natural language related work, as long a…

why would you not be fine about it?

You probably don’t want to read news websites which are nothing but LLM output without a journalist reviewing the articles. Unless you’re a fan of conspiracy theories or ultra-aligned content.

Re: Fire destroys S. Korean government's cloud storage system, no backups available

#470

Post by [deleted] »

trhway wrote: post #382
msbhvn wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Woah, read the timeline at the top of this. The fire happened the very day the government ordered onsite inspection was supposed to start due to Chinese/NK hacking.

Such coincidences do happen. 20 years ago the plane which was carrying all the top brass of the Russian Black Sea Fleet as well as the Fleet’s accounting documentation for inspection to Moscow burst in flames and fell to the ground while trying to get airborne. Being loaded with fuel it immediately became one large infernal fireball. By some miracle no top brass suffered even minor burn/injury while all the accountin…

[deleted]
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