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How the “Kim” dump exposed North Korea's credential theft playbook

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Re: How the “Kim” dump exposed North Korea's credential theft playbook

#81

Post by immibis »

torben-friis wrote: post #28
MaKey wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately that's true: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_st...

Ugh. It does look like the wording gives some room though? As in, it requires “preparing the commission of an offense”. Does acquiring the tool for other uses like learning or professional training help? Or even better, shouldn’t lack of proof that the user had malicious intent be enough?

Police can always fabricate intent (this is not specific to Germany - they can just say you told them you were going to hack someone, or your actions or body language obviously showed it) and then in practice it's up to you to show an alternative interpretation of facts. If you're studying computer security, that might get you off - but who better than a computer security student to do actual hacking?

Re: How the “Kim” dump exposed North Korea's credential theft playbook

#82

Post by doikor »

moomoo11 wrote: post #71
chasd00 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything happens to North Korea and all those starving people flood into China. I think that’s why China supports North Korea.

How did they manage to brain control millions of people like that? I mean it’s so ludicrous to an outsider.

For the first couple decades while it was ahead of South Korea economically (in large part due to support from China/USSR) it was not that bad but during that time the system of absolute control by the Kim family was setup and once it was up it is too late to really do anything due to how absolute/brutal the control is (you say anything wrong and you and your whole extended family end up in a prison/death camp)

Basically people are willing to put up with a lot if their lives are getting better (economic growth). Problem with that is what kind of system of control an authoritarian government can setup in that period of growth.

Re: How the “Kim” dump exposed North Korea's credential theft playbook

#83

Post by thisislife2 »

the_af wrote: post #39
wrp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of how unhappy Beijing may be with things Pyongyang does, North Korea is of such obvious strategic importance to China that they are unlikely to ever waver in their support of the regime or even try to hide it.

What's surprising about this? It's not dissimilar to how the US behaves towards their less than savory strategic allies (or, historically, towards dictatorships as long as they were US-aligned).

Exactly. It's the equivalent of something like western Five / Nine / Fourteen Eyes, that also share intelligence within the alliance.

Re: How the “Kim” dump exposed North Korea's credential theft playbook

#84

Post by hetman »

energy123 wrote: post #77
wrp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of how unhappy Beijing may be with things Pyongyang does, North Korea is of such obvious strategic importance to China that they are unlikely to ever waver in their support of the regime or even try to hide it.

China kept backing Khmer Rouge despite the millions dead and even invaded Vietnam to protect them. Amoral, self interested actor at best. There's nothing North Korea could do to their own people to change the support.

In fairness, the US kept indirectly funding the Khmer Rouge even after evidence of their atrocities came to light for their own strategic geopolitical reasons.

The realpolitic of international relations very often follows the words of the British prime minister, Lord Palmerston: "We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."

Re: How the “Kim” dump exposed North Korea's credential theft playbook

#85

Post by tonyhart7 »

sgnelson wrote: post #6

This is interesting due to the tying of DPRK and PRC. It seems hard to say how much coordination there is between the two, but whatever it is, it appears to be greater than zero. While not necessarily surprising, I wonder if this public attribution will make it harder for the PRC to deny involvement with both the DPRK's efforts and their own.

in intelligence and cybersecurity community this are well known fact

after all chinese is the first one that has official military cyber unit (first in the world)

north korean following suit for monetary reason and have as far as Property (Hotel etc) on china mainland to run the operation from there

as for china??? they basically have an "laundry" business that can take dollar from korea in trade of supplies

Re: How the “Kim” dump exposed North Korea's credential theft playbook

#86

Post by Joel_Mckay »

awesome_dude wrote: post #43
asdff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anything the hackers in north korea are probably world class if the government is getting their students into focused training programs early in their schooling. Western nations have nothing equivalent due to schooling being generalist and undergrad and grad school not really introducing you to the sort of work you'd actually do on the job as a hacker. 22 year old western hacker for a 3 letter agency is going to h…

> 22 year old western hacker for a 3 letter agency is going to have maybe a 6 month softball tangentially related internship of experience under their belt while the north korean might have years and years by that point. I was with you right up until this bit The agencies concerned tend to recruit people that have demonstrated ability in that field, and they've usually got it with "self-directed" training :)

State sponsored thieves are not a talent pool that anyone wants in a trusted position.

The fact is there were only around 40 unique hacks ever invented, and people simply adapt these into new zero day exploits. Notably, this is now mostly a fully automated process.

If people want in, they will get in eventually. =3

x C62=:K6 J@F 2C6 AC66>AE:G6=J 5:D28C66:?8 H:E9 E96 DFCAC:D:?8=J =@H 6DE:>2E6 @7 6IA=@:E E2I@?@>J[ 3FE 9F>2? DE2E:DE:42= 3692G:@C :D 2=D@ ?@E 2D 4@>A=6I 2D >2?J 36=:6G6]

Re: How the “Kim” dump exposed North Korea's credential theft playbook

#87

Post by _def »

lawgimenez wrote: post #18

I believe these are the hackers responsible for this leak: https://phrack.org/issues/72/7_md#article

> I am a Hacker and I am the opposite to all that you are. In my realm, we are all alike. We exist without skin color, without nationality, and without political agenda. We are slaves to nobody.

Classic elitist take ignoring that this this space where "all are alike" can only work for certain kinds of people.

Re: How the “Kim” dump exposed North Korea's credential theft playbook

#88

Post by sim7c00 »

interesting stuff but the china angle is a bit overstated with option A/B.

it could simply be the guy maintains presence there because he has access. NK has no public internet so he might simply enjoy internet access -_- rather than neccesarily be either pretending to be chinese or working for them...

Re: How the “Kim” dump exposed North Korea's credential theft playbook

#89

Post by sim7c00 »

_def wrote: post #87
lawgimenez wrote: post #18

I believe these are the hackers responsible for this leak: https://phrack.org/issues/72/7_md#article

> I am a Hacker and I am the opposite to all that you are. In my realm, we are all alike. We exist without skin color, without nationality, and without political agenda. We are slaves to nobody. Classic elitist take ignoring that this this space where "all are alike" can only work for certain kinds of people.

Brian: We are all different! Guy: I'm not!

its always just some cheesy hacker words put to seem mysterious or whatever -_-.

we are legion, we are one etc. anything like that fall apart quickly if you attach identity to something doesnt it.

i guess by being anonymous online some forget they are not anonymous irl. a lot of being alone with the terminal ^^>

gotta read between all the fluff tho.

Re: How the “Kim” dump exposed North Korea's credential theft playbook

#90

Post by helqn »

_def wrote: post #87
lawgimenez wrote: post #18

I believe these are the hackers responsible for this leak: https://phrack.org/issues/72/7_md#article

> I am a Hacker and I am the opposite to all that you are. In my realm, we are all alike. We exist without skin color, without nationality, and without political agenda. We are slaves to nobody. Classic elitist take ignoring that this this space where "all are alike" can only work for certain kinds of people.

On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Unless you make it your whole personality telling everybody that you are a dog. Maybe stop doing that.
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