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Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

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Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#71

Post by pm90 »

indubitable wrote: post #54

I find these allegations are deserving of some scrutiny. The entire story is quite bizarre when you begin to consider it. The NSA is apparently leaking like a broken pipe with this information. And it's peculiar because this is information that makes our intelligence agencies look completely inept. That is a very good thing if this story is fake, but a very bad thing if its true. It is stupefying that NSA contractors…

While I agree with your assessment of the Establishments role in the promotion of the Iraq war, I don't think an actual conflict with Russia is either desirable or possible without severely wrecking the current global order. It seems more like the kind of behavior I've seen when you impose tedious security protocols universally without explaining it properly to those expected to follow it.

I'm willing to bet that as the NSA continues to expand its digital monitoring divisions, it has increased the use of contractors a lot. And not all of them might be aware of the supremely sensitive nature of the information they are dealing with.

The thing that makes me even more convinced that this is what's going on is that you don't see a lot of leaks/breaches from NSA officers(agents? not sure what the correct terminology is) but mostly from contractors. Hell, Snowden was also a contractor and not a member of the NSA. Maybe they need to realize that this kind of cost cutting is just not worth it.

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#72

Post by cm2187 »

jakelarkin wrote: post #34

how Kaspersky was ever thought to be "okay" in the US enterprise/government market has always been perplexing to me. Antivirus, something which literally inspects all of your files and network activity, made in the country that's a hotbed of blackhat activity and home one of the most aggressive cyber-espionage militaries outside the US. yea okay great, sign me up.

In general there is much to be said about the huge amount of code that runs from thousands of sources on every machine.

Most OS comes with hundreds of drivers, many created by hardware makers all over the world, running with root privileges / kernel mode. And then you add to that all of the software that you install, developed by companies or volunteers all over the world, and running all sort of third party libraries, etc.

The chain of trust is huge. I'd be shocked if there was any computer in any US administration that wasn't running some piece of code written by a russian national.

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#73

Post by dragonwriter »

mhneu wrote: post #55
tlrobinson wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, an extreme interpretation of that statement could be that Kaspersky considers the NSA to be a "cyberthreat"...

Kaspersky was trained by the FSB (former KGB). (Putin has been quoted as saying "there's no such thing as a /former/ KGB officer"). So as a defacto agent of the Russian government, Kaspersky certainly considers the NSA (and other Western gov't agencies) to be an adversary. Agreed that it's crazy that the US govt ever used Kaspersky software. https://www.extremetech.com/internet/252421-russian-cybersec... "According t…

> Kaspersky was trained by the FSB (former KGB).

No, he was trained by the KGB, the predecessor to the FSB, SVR RF, and , I think, a couple other organizations. (That is, he was trained while the Soviet Union and the KGB existed, and before the Russian Federation became independent and existing and new Russian institutions succeeded to the roles of the former Soviet organs.)

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#74

Post by [deleted] »

mhneu wrote: post #57
thephyber wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jacob Applebaum publicly claimed (at the Chaos Computer Club, Germany, in the mid-2010s) that the Five Eyes and other intelligence services, for better or worse, attack employees of network providers, SaaS providers, and likely native software providers. It's not clear to me if it matters what country they are working from. If the NSA has a credible threat in the USA, they can be authorized to assist with domestic in…

Yes, the NSA and other Five Eyes agencies go after foreign ISPs. There are strong legal protections keeping the NSA from spying on Americans without very strong evidence. Lawfare has covered this extensively. Here's an example from Wittes (even stronger because he's basically a neocon). https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/911231805302480896

[deleted]

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#75

Post by spaceseaman »

indubitable wrote: post #54

I find these allegations are deserving of some scrutiny. The entire story is quite bizarre when you begin to consider it. The NSA is apparently leaking like a broken pipe with this information. And it's peculiar because this is information that makes our intelligence agencies look completely inept. That is a very good thing if this story is fake, but a very bad thing if its true. It is stupefying that NSA contractors…

> Our media and our government lied to generate a case for war. And I feel lately that they are now trying to build a case for some sort of conflict, presumably cold, against Russia

I mean, there's verifiable evidence Russia tried to influence our election. That's pretty new for a lot of Americans. I imagine that's why the government and the media are running wild with it. Mueller is still investigating. I would say to wait till that report comes out before jumping to conclusions. I personally don't think the media and government are gearing up for some Russia conflict. This is just the first time Russia has been so involved in our politics since the Cold War, and the media is rightly running with that idea. Is it that unbelievable for some people that Russia was involved in trying to influence our election? I can't tell if you're rightly scared of the media or just can't believe Russia would do something bad.

With respect to the quality of work at the NSA?

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

And finally with respect to all the leaking... I think it's pretty clear that's just the NSA's lack of confidence in its leader.

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#76

Post by jonknee »

indubitable wrote: post #54

I find these allegations are deserving of some scrutiny. The entire story is quite bizarre when you begin to consider it. The NSA is apparently leaking like a broken pipe with this information. And it's peculiar because this is information that makes our intelligence agencies look completely inept. That is a very good thing if this story is fake, but a very bad thing if its true. It is stupefying that NSA contractors…

> For instance why in the world wouldn't they have OS level software restricting read access of a certain secure partition (or removable media) to a specific whitelist of processes? Or why wouldn't they use an airgapped machine?

At some point you have to actually use your exploits, they can't all stay in secure airgapped machines. Malware is made to be used and to be used it must be copied. Obviously taking it home is egregious, but it's not like securing a private key or launch codes.

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#77

Post by dreamfactored »

indubitable wrote: post #54

I find these allegations are deserving of some scrutiny. The entire story is quite bizarre when you begin to consider it. The NSA is apparently leaking like a broken pipe with this information. And it's peculiar because this is information that makes our intelligence agencies look completely inept. That is a very good thing if this story is fake, but a very bad thing if its true. It is stupefying that NSA contractors…

I'm going to take it that you've never done public sector contracting. The security rules are in reality less 007 and more school library, and this is totally believable. There is another story in the news now about soldiers smartphones being hacked in Eastern Europe. The troops are therefore made to go through water every day but some of them just put their phones in condoms. Defense contractors aren't even state employees and the security checks are basically akin to credit checks.

Russia (and China and others) have an advantage here in having recently been run as controlled states and having much of the bureaucratic apparatus and social habits still in place (e.g. bring your passport to buy a train ticket to another town; little old lady stationed on every floor of a hotel keeping an eye on comings and goings etc).

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#78

Post by mythrwy »

0xfeba wrote: post #67
indubitable wrote: post #54

I find these allegations are deserving of some scrutiny. The entire story is quite bizarre when you begin to consider it. The NSA is apparently leaking like a broken pipe with this information. And it's peculiar because this is information that makes our intelligence agencies look completely inept. That is a very good thing if this story is fake, but a very bad thing if its true. It is stupefying that NSA contractors…

I'm so skeptical now of skeptical Russia posts. A 25 day old account who's first comment [0] was about media and divisiveness. 0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15336362

Maybe that's the first part of the evil plan? Make people see Russians everywhere.

I try to look at content and don't care much who the poster might be. Because everyone has motive even if it's just boredom or attention.

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#79

Post by codedokode »

I remember that Kaspersky helped to investigate some of cyberattacks perfromed allegedly by western agencies. Could not these articles be a part of revenge campaign to punish them?

And another thought, if we cannot trust foreign AV software, does it mean that every country must have at list one national AV product? Or maybe it would make sence to make some special API for AV software so that it can check files and processes but cannot send data to the Internet?

Re: Russian Hackers Stole NSA Data on U.S. Cyber Defense

#80

Post by SerLava »

dreamfactored wrote: post #77
indubitable wrote: post #54

I find these allegations are deserving of some scrutiny. The entire story is quite bizarre when you begin to consider it. The NSA is apparently leaking like a broken pipe with this information. And it's peculiar because this is information that makes our intelligence agencies look completely inept. That is a very good thing if this story is fake, but a very bad thing if its true. It is stupefying that NSA contractors…

I'm going to take it that you've never done public sector contracting. The security rules are in reality less 007 and more school library, and this is totally believable. There is another story in the news now about soldiers smartphones being hacked in Eastern Europe. The troops are therefore made to go through water every day but some of them just put their phones in condoms. Defense contractors aren't even state em…

Wait, are you saying the commanders are trying to destroy the soldiers' personal hidden phones by making them swim with their gear?
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