9 ms·

Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity utility, officials say

117 points by brentm 10y ago

glasz 10y ago
> according to U.S. officials. "officials" said iraq has wmd. "officials" have an ambassador's daughter crying in front if congress, telling lies about babies being killed. "officials say" all kinds of shit. "officials" have lost all credibility. and still, "officials" have their "say" in some stupid paper. edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony) https://youtu.be/LmfVs3WaE9Y https://youtu.be/LmfVs3WaE9Y
- webkike 10y ago
  "officials" aren't a single person either.
  - revelation 10y ago
    So name them. No US official will tell classified info on some agency phone, so it is always the opinion of the administration that is being repeated. But papers like WP and NYT allow "officials speaking on the condition of anonymity" to claim any number of things and slander whoever without even the remote possibility of supporting documentation. It's not even about access, there is no access to be had, just more PR that didn't hit the wire. The only journalist who got classified info from a gov official in the last years was the mistress of Petraeus writing his biography, and even he realized that mere words are useless so helpfully supplied his notebook and docs.
    - Retra 10y ago
      Why? You already know everything about who gets what classified info and what journalist's internal processes look like. Surely you have access to the names of officials who hold public office in the relevant departments and agencies.
  - glasz 10y ago
    you're right. it's a bunch of folks without a spine to stand up straight and oppose lies and question "facts" thereby supporting and carrying forth the myths. some may fail simply because of bureaucracy but still all of this happens because the majority are desperate sheep.
- sigmar 10y ago
  Are you saying you have reason to believe that Grizzly Steppe code was not used to penetrate the Vermont utility? Or are you just being cynical?
  - StanislavPetrov 10y ago
    I think he's saying that government officials should have absolutely no credibility given their long and nearly perfect track-record of always being wrong. The real tragedy isn't that government officials have no credibility, its that so many Americans fail to grasp this indisputable truth.
  - ue_ 10y ago
    I don't necessarily agree with what GP is saying, but I don't see why we should be trusting people so much so as to require evidence of absence from people who simply doubt what's being said. GP provides some examples of cases in which trust was mis-placed, which is fine enough for me to have a second-think about this rather than assume it to be true.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  Bush misused and misled the public on the little WMD evidence that was had: "It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized," Pillar wrote. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/09/AR2006020902418.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02... Also, Powell: "I'm Not Reading This. This is Bullshit." http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/44516:powell-im-not-reading-this-this-is-bullshit http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/44516:powell-im-not-re... On top of that, your little talking point, which is endlessly repeated on the internet, makes no sense. So Iraq was sold to the public dishonestly, thus all claims from the government are dishonest, but for some bizarre reason the Russian government is unusually honest and truthful? Come on.
  - wallace_f 10y ago
    Reasonable minds can agree both governments have proven to be dishonest, although Russia is almost certainly worse. I think he's just saying he has some skepticism, which is perfectly reasonable.
    - okreallywtf 10y ago
      But he/she is not making a reasonable argument though, they are making a cynical one that doesn't even remotely make room for a rational discussion. This seems to be a scary new norm where people are so frustrated they cannot see the complexity and nuance of the world, its just all crap and crap crap crap. The only think these people seem to trust is everyone lies and you can't trust anything, and when you can convince enough people of this (who will in turn stay home on election day and leave control up to the extremists who will not be) and you can take control, thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. The thing that scares me about this the most is the attitudes of people I ran into face-to-face registering voters this year. I ran into quite a few people to would make similar statements and the interesting thing was that after a while I could actually predict pretty well how people would respond to being asked if they were registered to vote from a distance. The people who had very cynical responses looked miserable (from a distance, before I talked to them) and likely were miserable (thinking the world is crap and everyone is lying and we're all being spied on and no-one can stop it, etc) and it leads me to believe many of the people who comment on these stories in similar ways are similarly miserable. The bad-news flood from our overly connected lives I think is starting to have a serious effect on peoples psychology and it is making it harder and harder to have reasonable discourse. In the end at this rate its going to be a small number of news-junkies and academics and a bunch of extremists and the rest of the population will be tuned out as long as there is enough food and distractions available.
- lisivka 10y ago
  Iraq had WMD and used it frequently, like other countries in the region.
  - armenarmen 10y ago
    well, we never found them.
    - grzm 10y ago
      I think what may be confusing the issue is at what time we're talking about. Given the broad strokes being argued in this thread, it makes it difficult to have a constructive discussion. There are documented cases of Iraq using chemical weapons while under Saddam's rule. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_chemical_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_chemical_attack For more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program Following the 1990 Gulf War, there was a concerted international effort to eliminate Iraq's WMD capabilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_disarmament_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_disarmament_crisis By 2003, when the coalition invaded Iraq, for all intents and purposes Iraq no longer had WMDs, as reported by the Iraq Survey Group.
      - glasz 10y ago
        concerning halabja let me quote my fellow countryman: Dieter Backfisch, managing director of West German company Karl Kolb GmbH, was quoted by saying in 1989 that "for people in Germany poison gas is something quite terrible, but this does not worry customers abroad." i hate all this being discussed and referenced in a one-sided way. as if saddam or putin or others are the only evil. background on how the west delivers all the groundwork which they then condemn: https://fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/az120103.html https://fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/az120103.html
        grzm 10y ago
        I agree that it can be difficult to figure out where to limit the scope. On the other hand, figuring out a place to start where you can agree is important, otherwise people are left talking past each other. Trying to clarify a few points being discussed does not mean everything else not mentioned is being ignored or assumed to be justified.
smaddali 10y ago
from the quick read, it looks like a spear phishing attack at the root of it. --- According to the report by the FBI and DHS, the hackers involved in the Russian operation used fraudulent emails that tricked their recipients into revealing passwords. --- This incident should be investigated thoroughly and serious defenses should be put in place. Destabilizing the electric grid like the Kiev incident shouldn't be allowed.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  Yeah I'm surprised 2FA isn't the norm with organizations that work with the government or control infrastructure. The idea of just using a password is fairly idiotic. They're too easy speared and cracked.
  - eli 10y ago
    What's preventing the bad guys from phishing a 2FA token on their fake login page too?
    - jacalata 10y ago
      It should make it harder because you have to run the attack based on the user interaction timing, you can't just capture and hold credentials for later.
      - eli 10y ago
        No doubt, but that's hardly an obstacle for an even moderately sophisticated attacker. I don't know what the magic bullet answer to phishing is, but this ain't it.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    Usually 2FA is only at the perimeter where you have legacy or embedded systems. There's always a way in.
zaroth 10y ago
Last year it was China. This year it is Russia. If hacking were a reason to escalate with a country, then everyone would already be at war with the US, as we have hacked everyone, almost completely and entirely, from before they even boot their NIB routers. The report is interesting only in that it exposes operational and software weaknesses that should be hardened. The rest of it, I roll my eyes at the side show and am ever hopeful the US will saber rattle less, and get on with the business of helping Americans prosper.
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  I hope by that you mean secure our infrastructure from future intrusion.
  - UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
    > I hope by that you mean secure our infrastructure from future intrusion. Pretty sure, that's what they meant when they said: > The report is interesting only in that it exposes operational and software weaknesses that should be hardened. Not sure how else you could read the above paragraph and NOT get "secure our infrastructure from future intrusion."
- __derek__ 10y ago
  > saber rattle Trolls and their bots have turned this phrase into a dog-whistle. Talking about how Putin is a dangerous autocrat? That's sabre rattling. Breaking with long-standing policy vis-à-vis Taiwan to China's chagrin? A bold move. > everyone would already be at war with the US The post-Cold War balance of power contradicts this. Provoking a great power makes little sense for obvious reasons.
  - dmix 10y ago
    But Russia and China don't go around enforcing human rights and their morality on other countries. So it's not just superpowers playing their advantage. It's become a recent American diplomatic tradition to push hard on this stuff (externally) where it's convenient. Not just the state department but Human Rights Watch and similar orgs often push an American agenda, where it often seems to be in coordination with the CIA. Human rights include electoral freedom yes - but also freedom from unjustified violations of privacy by the state, free media, freedom of speech (silent all-seeing eyes chills people's speech via self-censorship). That's why there is more of an irony or hypocrisy when America calls out a country like Russia which doesn't do this type of preaching. While simultaneously operating the largest and most effective sigint and hacking operation in the world, along with the rest of the five eyes. Their access goes far beyond what Russia or China could ever do thanks to all of the Internet backbone, mobile companies, and tech companies within their (and UK, Australia, etc) geographic range. Along with the five eyes having wayyy more money to spend on defence. While Russia's economy is the size of Spain. So let be honest the only reason this charade works is because most people are oblivious to how this all works. It's just complicated "computer stuff". And those that do often rationalize it away as "everyone does it", regardless of unbridled scale - uncomparable in access to anything during the cold war - or the moral agenda being pushed by their countries. Also the US seems much better at not getting caught (publically). When they do it's 3yr+ old malware, that their adversary was able to play catch up enough to catch, or no longer needed to hide the fact they had it. Old hacks are far less newsworthy and people move on. The question is how long this one way street will be viable without blowback.
Spooky23 10y ago
The NY grid operator and ConEdison (NYC electric utility) unknowingly had a former KGB spy who had been living under an assumed identity for 40 years on the payroll in CIO/Chief Software Architect roles for many years. I'm sure there's plenty of similar stories, both human and technological. https://www.rtoinsider.com/soviet-spy-jack-barsky-nyiso-15052/ https://www.rtoinsider.com/soviet-spy-jack-barsky-nyiso-1505...
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  Do you have another source for this claim?
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    Try Google. It was in all of the regional papers. The guy was also interviewed on 60 Minutes. That interview prompted the system operator to issue their "he was in charge of software systems, but had no access to important things like the electric market" statement. The weird thing was the FBI knew about him and there was a strange quote that he would be more useful being interviewed by them while "living in freedom".
  - pvg 10y ago
    Piles of them just googling his name.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Jack Barsky was profiled on 60 minutes. They interviewed the FBI agents who turned him (or captured or whatever it was exactly that happened).
- pvg 10y ago
  That seems entirely accidental, though. He was a mostly failed spy, a compromised one to boot, who just got on with his life and happened to work at ConEd. It's not like the KGB planted a spy at the heart of power grid operations just waiting to flip a switch and plunge the Eastern seaboard into darkness.
Koshkin 10y ago
Hacking attempts are, and will be forever, part of reality. Just as are prostitution or drug abuse. Therefore, they should not be seen as something special, something newsworthy, or even something illegal. (It is the lack of security that results in break-ins, that should.)
- akhilcacharya 10y ago
  >or even something illegal. (It is the lack of security that results in break-ins, that should.) Wat Does this mean stealing from people's houses is not only legal if they don't have "proper security", but that the victim should be punished instead?
  - prostoalex 10y ago
    I think he implies that once you get into the area of international law, what's "illegal" for one party is merely "protecting and advancing national interests" for another. Moreover, there's no universally accepted third-party authority in charge of decision-making (i.e. your local courts) and enforcement (i.e. your local cops) that any country can appeal to in order to rule something "illegal". And even if there was, it's all based on a system of international agreements, so what's to prevent the aggressor from exiting the treaty anyways?
awqrre 10y ago
(and more then likely turned off voting machines in Clinton's disctricts)
cududa 10y ago
Mods, can the title be changed to reflect clarification? It was a laptop owned by the utility - not the actual power grid http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/vermont/2016/12/30/russia-hacked-us-grid-through-burlington-electric/96024326/ http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/vermont/...
- StanislavPetrov 10y ago
  Not just that, the title is completely inaccurate. The most relevant part of the articles title, "OFFICIALS SAY" is absent. Its the difference between: WMD found in Iraq. and WMD found in Iraq, officials say.
  - bendoernberg 10y ago
    Not to nitpick but do you have a source for officials saying that WMD's were found in Iraq? Obviously US officials said that intelligence pointed towards Iraq having them, but I'm not aware of any statements like "we found chemical weapons in _____." Edit: Based on the downvotes I guess this appeared to be nitpicking, but if we're going to use Iraqi WMD's as the canonical example of why we can't rely on statements from the government, seems like we should make sure we don't change the facts to fit a narrative either.
    - lobotryas 10y ago
      You are being downvoted because you missed the point. He's not claiming that anyone ever said anything about WMDs. He's just using that as an example. It's the equivalent of: UFO seen over AREA 51 and UFO seen over AREA 51, officials say
    - chenelson 10y ago
      It is rabbit hole speak; not you, per se--the downvotes. #vote.
  - brentm 10y ago
    > Not just that, the title is completely inaccurate. The most relevant part of the articles title, "OFFICIALS SAY" is absent. For what it's worth I copy & pasted the title from Wash Po at time of submission. I had to drop "officials say" because of the space restrictions on the HN submission form.
microcolonel 10y ago
Of course, going into no detail regarding how difficult it is to reliably attribute attacks based on the form of software. Also, more statements "anonymous officials" being published through WP. Literally no way to tell if they're just making this up. They could have said "Software attributed by Obama administration to Russian hacking group found on a laptop at a Vermont electrical utility company". But instead, they choose to venture down the most uncharitable and specific line of reasoning.
losvedir 10y ago
> A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials. First question: what is "Grizzly Steppe"? I thought it was the name given to the actions by both APT28 and APT29. Is this article claiming that somehow this campaign is related to the DNC / Podesta campaign? Or just that the malware involved was the same one used there and therefore probably something done by one or the other. And by "a code associated with", I wonder what that means? The Grizzly Steppe document released yesterday included things like "Powershell backdoor" as associations with APT28/29, but that can't be what they mean here, right? > This week, officials from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shared the Grizzly Steppe malware code with executives from 16 sectors nationwide, including the financial, utility and transportation industries, a senior administration official said. Vermont utility officials identified the code within their operations and reported it to federal officials Friday, the official said. So was this the PAS_TOOL_PHP_WEB_KIT Yara signature in the document released yesterday then? Or is there more unreleased info that the FBI and DNI released to those executives?
tptacek 10y ago
Only the naive think Russia hasn't owned up many of the largest utilities in the US, and/or that they couldn't significantly disrupt power distribution with the access they've acquired. The US doubtless has the same access to Russia's infrastructure. No matter what message board people think should be the case here, the fact is that this infrastructure is in fact exposed to attackers in a variety of ways.
cavisne 10y ago
Laptop gets malware - could have come from anywhere Government links malware to russia - no proof ?? War!
livestyle 10y ago
Glenn Greenwald eviscerates this WaPo article https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31/russia-hysteria-infects-washpost-again-false-story-about-hacking-u-s-electric-grid/ https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31/russia-hysteria-infects-...

117 points by brentm 10y ago

glasz 10y ago

> according to U.S. officials. "officials" said iraq has wmd. "officials" have an ambassador's daughter crying in front if congress, telling lies about babies being killed. "officials say" all kinds of shit. "officials" have lost all credibility. and still, "officials" have their "say" in some stupid paper. edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_(testimony) https://youtu.be/LmfVs3WaE9Y https://youtu.be/LmfVs3WaE9Y

webkike 10y ago
"officials" aren't a single person either.
- revelation 10y ago
  So name them. No US official will tell classified info on some agency phone, so it is always the opinion of the administration that is being repeated. But papers like WP and NYT allow "officials speaking on the condition of anonymity" to claim any number of things and slander whoever without even the remote possibility of supporting documentation. It's not even about access, there is no access to be had, just more PR that didn't hit the wire. The only journalist who got classified info from a gov official in the last years was the mistress of Petraeus writing his biography, and even he realized that mere words are useless so helpfully supplied his notebook and docs.
  - Retra 10y ago
    Why? You already know everything about who gets what classified info and what journalist's internal processes look like. Surely you have access to the names of officials who hold public office in the relevant departments and agencies.
- glasz 10y ago
  you're right. it's a bunch of folks without a spine to stand up straight and oppose lies and question "facts" thereby supporting and carrying forth the myths. some may fail simply because of bureaucracy but still all of this happens because the majority are desperate sheep.
sigmar 10y ago
Are you saying you have reason to believe that Grizzly Steppe code was not used to penetrate the Vermont utility? Or are you just being cynical?
- StanislavPetrov 10y ago
  I think he's saying that government officials should have absolutely no credibility given their long and nearly perfect track-record of always being wrong. The real tragedy isn't that government officials have no credibility, its that so many Americans fail to grasp this indisputable truth.
- ue_ 10y ago
  I don't necessarily agree with what GP is saying, but I don't see why we should be trusting people so much so as to require evidence of absence from people who simply doubt what's being said. GP provides some examples of cases in which trust was mis-placed, which is fine enough for me to have a second-think about this rather than assume it to be true.
drzaiusapelord 10y ago
Bush misused and misled the public on the little WMD evidence that was had: "It has become clear that official intelligence was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between [Bush] policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized," Pillar wrote. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/09/AR2006020902418.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02... Also, Powell: "I'm Not Reading This. This is Bullshit." http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/44516:powell-im-not-reading-this-this-is-bullshit http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/44516:powell-im-not-re... On top of that, your little talking point, which is endlessly repeated on the internet, makes no sense. So Iraq was sold to the public dishonestly, thus all claims from the government are dishonest, but for some bizarre reason the Russian government is unusually honest and truthful? Come on.
- wallace_f 10y ago
  Reasonable minds can agree both governments have proven to be dishonest, although Russia is almost certainly worse. I think he's just saying he has some skepticism, which is perfectly reasonable.
  - okreallywtf 10y ago
    But he/she is not making a reasonable argument though, they are making a cynical one that doesn't even remotely make room for a rational discussion. This seems to be a scary new norm where people are so frustrated they cannot see the complexity and nuance of the world, its just all crap and crap crap crap. The only think these people seem to trust is everyone lies and you can't trust anything, and when you can convince enough people of this (who will in turn stay home on election day and leave control up to the extremists who will not be) and you can take control, thereby creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. The thing that scares me about this the most is the attitudes of people I ran into face-to-face registering voters this year. I ran into quite a few people to would make similar statements and the interesting thing was that after a while I could actually predict pretty well how people would respond to being asked if they were registered to vote from a distance. The people who had very cynical responses looked miserable (from a distance, before I talked to them) and likely were miserable (thinking the world is crap and everyone is lying and we're all being spied on and no-one can stop it, etc) and it leads me to believe many of the people who comment on these stories in similar ways are similarly miserable. The bad-news flood from our overly connected lives I think is starting to have a serious effect on peoples psychology and it is making it harder and harder to have reasonable discourse. In the end at this rate its going to be a small number of news-junkies and academics and a bunch of extremists and the rest of the population will be tuned out as long as there is enough food and distractions available.
lisivka 10y ago
Iraq had WMD and used it frequently, like other countries in the region.
- armenarmen 10y ago
  well, we never found them.
  - grzm 10y ago
    I think what may be confusing the issue is at what time we're talking about. Given the broad strokes being argued in this thread, it makes it difficult to have a constructive discussion. There are documented cases of Iraq using chemical weapons while under Saddam's rule. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_chemical_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_chemical_attack For more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program Following the 1990 Gulf War, there was a concerted international effort to eliminate Iraq's WMD capabilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_disarmament_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_disarmament_crisis By 2003, when the coalition invaded Iraq, for all intents and purposes Iraq no longer had WMDs, as reported by the Iraq Survey Group.
    - glasz 10y ago
      concerning halabja let me quote my fellow countryman: Dieter Backfisch, managing director of West German company Karl Kolb GmbH, was quoted by saying in 1989 that "for people in Germany poison gas is something quite terrible, but this does not worry customers abroad." i hate all this being discussed and referenced in a one-sided way. as if saddam or putin or others are the only evil. background on how the west delivers all the groundwork which they then condemn: https://fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/az120103.html https://fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/az120103.html
      - grzm 10y ago
        I agree that it can be difficult to figure out where to limit the scope. On the other hand, figuring out a place to start where you can agree is important, otherwise people are left talking past each other. Trying to clarify a few points being discussed does not mean everything else not mentioned is being ignored or assumed to be justified.

smaddali 10y ago

from the quick read, it looks like a spear phishing attack at the root of it. --- According to the report by the FBI and DHS, the hackers involved in the Russian operation used fraudulent emails that tricked their recipients into revealing passwords. --- This incident should be investigated thoroughly and serious defenses should be put in place. Destabilizing the electric grid like the Kiev incident shouldn't be allowed.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
Yeah I'm surprised 2FA isn't the norm with organizations that work with the government or control infrastructure. The idea of just using a password is fairly idiotic. They're too easy speared and cracked.
- eli 10y ago
  What's preventing the bad guys from phishing a 2FA token on their fake login page too?
  - jacalata 10y ago
    It should make it harder because you have to run the attack based on the user interaction timing, you can't just capture and hold credentials for later.
    - eli 10y ago
      No doubt, but that's hardly an obstacle for an even moderately sophisticated attacker. I don't know what the magic bullet answer to phishing is, but this ain't it.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Usually 2FA is only at the perimeter where you have legacy or embedded systems. There's always a way in.

zaroth 10y ago

Last year it was China. This year it is Russia. If hacking were a reason to escalate with a country, then everyone would already be at war with the US, as we have hacked everyone, almost completely and entirely, from before they even boot their NIB routers. The report is interesting only in that it exposes operational and software weaknesses that should be hardened. The rest of it, I roll my eyes at the side show and am ever hopeful the US will saber rattle less, and get on with the business of helping Americans prosper.

bluejekyll 10y ago
I hope by that you mean secure our infrastructure from future intrusion.
- UnoriginalGuy 10y ago
  > I hope by that you mean secure our infrastructure from future intrusion. Pretty sure, that's what they meant when they said: > The report is interesting only in that it exposes operational and software weaknesses that should be hardened. Not sure how else you could read the above paragraph and NOT get "secure our infrastructure from future intrusion."
__derek__ 10y ago
> saber rattle Trolls and their bots have turned this phrase into a dog-whistle. Talking about how Putin is a dangerous autocrat? That's sabre rattling. Breaking with long-standing policy vis-à-vis Taiwan to China's chagrin? A bold move. > everyone would already be at war with the US The post-Cold War balance of power contradicts this. Provoking a great power makes little sense for obvious reasons.
- dmix 10y ago
  But Russia and China don't go around enforcing human rights and their morality on other countries. So it's not just superpowers playing their advantage. It's become a recent American diplomatic tradition to push hard on this stuff (externally) where it's convenient. Not just the state department but Human Rights Watch and similar orgs often push an American agenda, where it often seems to be in coordination with the CIA. Human rights include electoral freedom yes - but also freedom from unjustified violations of privacy by the state, free media, freedom of speech (silent all-seeing eyes chills people's speech via self-censorship). That's why there is more of an irony or hypocrisy when America calls out a country like Russia which doesn't do this type of preaching. While simultaneously operating the largest and most effective sigint and hacking operation in the world, along with the rest of the five eyes. Their access goes far beyond what Russia or China could ever do thanks to all of the Internet backbone, mobile companies, and tech companies within their (and UK, Australia, etc) geographic range. Along with the five eyes having wayyy more money to spend on defence. While Russia's economy is the size of Spain. So let be honest the only reason this charade works is because most people are oblivious to how this all works. It's just complicated "computer stuff". And those that do often rationalize it away as "everyone does it", regardless of unbridled scale - uncomparable in access to anything during the cold war - or the moral agenda being pushed by their countries. Also the US seems much better at not getting caught (publically). When they do it's 3yr+ old malware, that their adversary was able to play catch up enough to catch, or no longer needed to hide the fact they had it. Old hacks are far less newsworthy and people move on. The question is how long this one way street will be viable without blowback.

Spooky23 10y ago

The NY grid operator and ConEdison (NYC electric utility) unknowingly had a former KGB spy who had been living under an assumed identity for 40 years on the payroll in CIO/Chief Software Architect roles for many years. I'm sure there's plenty of similar stories, both human and technological. https://www.rtoinsider.com/soviet-spy-jack-barsky-nyiso-15052/ https://www.rtoinsider.com/soviet-spy-jack-barsky-nyiso-1505...

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
Do you have another source for this claim?
- Spooky23 10y ago
  Try Google. It was in all of the regional papers. The guy was also interviewed on 60 Minutes. That interview prompted the system operator to issue their "he was in charge of software systems, but had no access to important things like the electric market" statement. The weird thing was the FBI knew about him and there was a strange quote that he would be more useful being interviewed by them while "living in freedom".
- pvg 10y ago
  Piles of them just googling his name.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Jack Barsky was profiled on 60 minutes. They interviewed the FBI agents who turned him (or captured or whatever it was exactly that happened).
pvg 10y ago
That seems entirely accidental, though. He was a mostly failed spy, a compromised one to boot, who just got on with his life and happened to work at ConEd. It's not like the KGB planted a spy at the heart of power grid operations just waiting to flip a switch and plunge the Eastern seaboard into darkness.

Koshkin 10y ago

Hacking attempts are, and will be forever, part of reality. Just as are prostitution or drug abuse. Therefore, they should not be seen as something special, something newsworthy, or even something illegal. (It is the lack of security that results in break-ins, that should.)

akhilcacharya 10y ago
>or even something illegal. (It is the lack of security that results in break-ins, that should.) Wat Does this mean stealing from people's houses is not only legal if they don't have "proper security", but that the victim should be punished instead?
- prostoalex 10y ago
  I think he implies that once you get into the area of international law, what's "illegal" for one party is merely "protecting and advancing national interests" for another. Moreover, there's no universally accepted third-party authority in charge of decision-making (i.e. your local courts) and enforcement (i.e. your local cops) that any country can appeal to in order to rule something "illegal". And even if there was, it's all based on a system of international agreements, so what's to prevent the aggressor from exiting the treaty anyways?

awqrre 10y ago

(and more then likely turned off voting machines in Clinton's disctricts)

cududa 10y ago

Mods, can the title be changed to reflect clarification? It was a laptop owned by the utility - not the actual power grid http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/vermont/2016/12/30/russia-hacked-us-grid-through-burlington-electric/96024326/ http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/vermont/...

StanislavPetrov 10y ago
Not just that, the title is completely inaccurate. The most relevant part of the articles title, "OFFICIALS SAY" is absent. Its the difference between: WMD found in Iraq. and WMD found in Iraq, officials say.
- bendoernberg 10y ago
  Not to nitpick but do you have a source for officials saying that WMD's were found in Iraq? Obviously US officials said that intelligence pointed towards Iraq having them, but I'm not aware of any statements like "we found chemical weapons in _____." Edit: Based on the downvotes I guess this appeared to be nitpicking, but if we're going to use Iraqi WMD's as the canonical example of why we can't rely on statements from the government, seems like we should make sure we don't change the facts to fit a narrative either.
  - lobotryas 10y ago
    You are being downvoted because you missed the point. He's not claiming that anyone ever said anything about WMDs. He's just using that as an example. It's the equivalent of: UFO seen over AREA 51 and UFO seen over AREA 51, officials say
  - chenelson 10y ago
    It is rabbit hole speak; not you, per se--the downvotes. #vote.
- brentm 10y ago
  > Not just that, the title is completely inaccurate. The most relevant part of the articles title, "OFFICIALS SAY" is absent. For what it's worth I copy & pasted the title from Wash Po at time of submission. I had to drop "officials say" because of the space restrictions on the HN submission form.

microcolonel 10y ago

Of course, going into no detail regarding how difficult it is to reliably attribute attacks based on the form of software. Also, more statements "anonymous officials" being published through WP. Literally no way to tell if they're just making this up. They could have said "Software attributed by Obama administration to Russian hacking group found on a laptop at a Vermont electrical utility company". But instead, they choose to venture down the most uncharitable and specific line of reasoning.

losvedir 10y ago

> A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials. First question: what is "Grizzly Steppe"? I thought it was the name given to the actions by both APT28 and APT29. Is this article claiming that somehow this campaign is related to the DNC / Podesta campaign? Or just that the malware involved was the same one used there and therefore probably something done by one or the other. And by "a code associated with", I wonder what that means? The Grizzly Steppe document released yesterday included things like "Powershell backdoor" as associations with APT28/29, but that can't be what they mean here, right? > This week, officials from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shared the Grizzly Steppe malware code with executives from 16 sectors nationwide, including the financial, utility and transportation industries, a senior administration official said. Vermont utility officials identified the code within their operations and reported it to federal officials Friday, the official said. So was this the PAS_TOOL_PHP_WEB_KIT Yara signature in the document released yesterday then? Or is there more unreleased info that the FBI and DNI released to those executives?

tptacek 10y ago

Only the naive think Russia hasn't owned up many of the largest utilities in the US, and/or that they couldn't significantly disrupt power distribution with the access they've acquired. The US doubtless has the same access to Russia's infrastructure. No matter what message board people think should be the case here, the fact is that this infrastructure is in fact exposed to attackers in a variety of ways.

cavisne 10y ago

Laptop gets malware - could have come from anywhere Government links malware to russia - no proof ?? War!

livestyle 10y ago

Glenn Greenwald eviscerates this WaPo article https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31/russia-hysteria-infects-washpost-again-false-story-about-hacking-u-s-electric-grid/ https://theintercept.com/2016/12/31/russia-hysteria-infects-...