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> What’s the problem here? It did not happen. > There was no “penetration of the U.S. electricity grid.” The truth was undramatic and banal. Burlington Electri
by a3n 10y ago
> What’s the problem here? It did not happen.
> There was no “penetration of the U.S. electricity grid.” The truth was undramatic and banal. Burlington Electric, after receiving a Homeland Security notice sent to all U.S. utility companies about the malware code found in the DNC system, searched all their computers and found the code in a single laptop that was not connected to the electric grid.
"and found the code in a single laptop that was not connected to the electric grid."
So, the first step in penetrating a system was accomplished, getting the code onto a device that could potentially (or so they attacker may have hoped) be connected to the target network.
Until I hear that the code was put on the laptop by its owners intentionally and for legitimate reasons, this sounds like an attack. The headlines and responses are arguably alarmist and not fully informed, but it's still an attack. The dismissal of alarmism seems intended to obscure the likelihood that there was, in fact, the start of an attack.
If a spear phishing attack fails, was it not still an attack? That it was an attack in the direction of the power grid is, by definition, alarming. [EDIT: The first sentence in this paragraph confuses my point, and can profitably be ignored.]
The intercept's article could have been less sensationalist itself, and I wonder what the motivation for the overdramatization of the Post's failure would be. Competition? Schadenfreude? Sensationalist link baiting?
Regardless, I had hoped for a more sober and professional style from the intercept from its early days, and I've long ago stopped reading it, modulo the odd HN post.
- Spooky23 10y agoLast time I was present for a pen test, the testers compromised a laptop, then moved laterally to compromise a other devices, which got them to a host that mattered.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago> Until I hear that the code was put on the laptop by its owners intentionally and for legitimate reasons, this sounds like an attack Nobody is disputing that. But "electric company employee's laptop gets a computer virus" is a far cry from "the Russian government is attacking our infrastructure".
- darpa_escapee 10y agoOn the other hand, Stuxnet.
- finid 10y agoAre you implying that we drew first blood?
- WalterSear 10y agoThat was Iran, not Russia. But, we threw the first stone.
- celticninja 10y agoI think that the US govt is now throwing it's toys out of the pram because it thinks other countries (Russia) are using the same methods that the US employs to attack it's enemies and to influence the elections of other nations against them (the US). Personally I think it shows a huge degree of paranoia within the US govt, either that or it is a handy way to try and elicit support for future actions (further economic sanctions) against Russia. Especially as this comes a day after Russia brokered a peace deal in Syria, something the US could not achieve.
- rhizome 10y agoI saw some speculation that the DNC hack was retaliation for something the US had done previously.
- chris11 10y agoHillary Clinton is saying it was retaliation for her claiming that the Russian parliamentary elections in 2011 were rigged. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/us/politics/hillary-clinton-russia-fbi-comey.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/16/us/politics/hillary-clinto... I'm not saying that is true, but it does makes sense.
- StanislavPetrov 10y ago>and I wonder what the motivation for the overdramatization of the Post's failure would be. You shouldn't wonder. The Washington Post is, and always has been, the voice of the DC/Media establishment and the number one disseminator of their propaganda. Remember that the absurd "PropOrNot" garbage was published in the Washington Post after being turned down by several major media outlets that at least seek to maintain the semblance of credibility.
- ccarter84 10y agoSolid point, haven't seen if they've updated anything on their faq for more transparency. But I doubt it.
- strictnein 10y agoThe Intercept in general (and Greenwald in particular) seems to spend an inordinate amount of time combating the "Russia Hysteria", as they've labeled it.
- ccarter84 10y agoYea, it's been interesting to watch that evolve. The Snowden comments on the latest Russian sanctions were ... I guess unsurprising as well
- RodericDay 10y agoInordinate? The United States went to war in Iraq in 2003 under false pretenses. The cost of that mistake was gigantic, and continues to pile up. This saber-rattling against Russia could have serious consequences, and seems to be inspired mainly by a need to find some kind of scapegoat on which to blame the DNC's absurd loss against Trump. I'm glad they're doing this.
- bluejekyll 10y ago> The United States went to war in Afghanistan in 2003 under false pretenses. I hardly call 2,000 dead Americans, and an attack on American soil "false pretenses". If you want to claim that it was misguided to perform a full scale invasion vs. targeted special ops missions, that is a more interesting argument. Now, the war in Iraq on the other hand, that was false pretenses...
- RodericDay 10y agoYou are absolutely right, that was a particularly unfortunate mix-up. I was thinking about how animosity towards Afghanistan was skillfully employed to justify invading Iraq, and in the process mixed myself up.
- celticninja 10y agoWell it was false pretenses in that not one of the attackers was from Afghanistan not were there any proven links between the attackers and Afghanistan other than Osama being assumed to be the mastermind and residing in Afghanistan at the time.
- canjobear 10y agoThe malware was generic malware. Anyone could buy it. It was not employed only by Russians. So finding it on a laptop is not strong evidence that Russians put it there.
- jerkstate 10y agoFWIW, a decompiled version is also available on github..
- yes_or_gnome 10y agoAbsolutely, correct. In college, I worked for a security team contracted to GE. There's an absurd number of APT trying to get details about GE's engines and production. Executives, engineers, even pilots would have to send their laptops to that team for inspection. Finding newly created APT viruses is a weekly event. You end up seeing trends -- like a specific file, or registry keys, or running 'strings' on a binary, etc. -- that it becomes obvious that you can tie multiple incidents to the same author/group. A word of advice: Don't go to porn sites, install Limewire (dated; today's equivalent), torrent, TOR, etc. on your work computer. Conversely, keep your work off of your personal computer.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- a3n 10y agoAnd even what I assumed to be the beginnings of an attack or probe turned out to be a false positive.