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What kind of hosting company is going to have any kind of reputation after admitting their security allowed an ex-admin to ransack everything? Rephrase the que

What kind of hosting company is going to have any kind of reputation after admitting their security allowed an ex-admin to ransack everything? Rephrase the question -- what idiot customer is going to do business with such a place that allows such a lapse in security to happen? Intel would basically have to buy the company.

atmosx 9y ago
> What kind of hosting company is going to have any kind of reputation after admitting their security allowed an ex-admin to ransack everything? The kind of people that: - Use Gmail, iCloud, etc. post Snowden - Buys SSL certificates from Comodo, etc. - [put other companies here] So, pretty much everybody, me included. Your idea that mis-management can damage a company's reputation permanently, has been proved wrong. The complexity of moving an infrastructure in and out of a service provider is apparently bigger, os as you say, we're all stupid - we manage to survive somehow though.
chris_wot 9y ago
Either way, their reputation would be trashed. Intel knew about potential issues in their products for many, many years. I'd shed no tears if lots of people do this to them now.
hoodoof 9y ago
>>admitting their security allowed an ex-admin to ransack everything What, exactly can be done to secure a company against a malicious systems admin? These are the guys typically with not only the keys to everything but also the knowledge of how it all works. You say that the company cannot be trusted for "allowing" this to happen. I know quite alot about this stuff, and for MOST companies, they simply have to trust that the people with the keys to the castle with behave responsibly. There are ways to design infrastructure such that it is protected from its builders and keepers, but this is very very hard and complex and expensive. Presumably you work for a company that has taken steps to ensure this will never happen, what are they?
- kelnos 9y ago
  You should be trivially able to secure your company against an ex admin, though -- why was this ex-admin's credentials not revoked immediately after their employment ended?
  - x0 9y ago
    Who's saying they weren't? I'm sure that administrator would have been able to plant subtle backdoors, or find and not fix vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, during their time there. In which case it wouldn't matter that their credentials were revoked.
    - tajen 9y ago
      Honest question: Are Ansible + peer reviews enough to secure sysadmin work? Of course they can log on the machine to open a backdoor, but they are supposed to be regularly destroyed and rebuilt regularly, so we're theoretically safe, aren't we?
      - arcticfox 9y ago
        Unless they put the backdoor in the image, then it's on all machines. I don't think there's an option here
  - vinceguidry 9y ago
    You're assuming he hasn't built in back doors. At my one and only sysadmin job, the network was secured from likes of this guy by the senior engineer, a Vietnam vet with trust issues and whose talents weren't only technical. Nothing says "web of trust" like knowing your boss could show up at your door with a shotgun demanding answers.
  - imron 9y ago
    > why was this ex-admin's credentials not revoked immediately after their employment ended? Maybe they were but he'd set up time bombs. Maybe the admin was fed up, knew he wanted to burn things down, wiped everything remotely and then never turned up for work and he became an ex employee in the aftermath. It's decidedly not trivial to secure your company against a malicious admin who has control of much of your infrastructure.
_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
VW has record sales.

atmosx 9y ago

> What kind of hosting company is going to have any kind of reputation after admitting their security allowed an ex-admin to ransack everything? The kind of people that: - Use Gmail, iCloud, etc. post Snowden - Buys SSL certificates from Comodo, etc. - [put other companies here] So, pretty much everybody, me included. Your idea that mis-management can damage a company's reputation permanently, has been proved wrong. The complexity of moving an infrastructure in and out of a service provider is apparently bigger, os as you say, we're all stupid - we manage to survive somehow though.

chris_wot 9y ago

Either way, their reputation would be trashed. Intel knew about potential issues in their products for many, many years. I'd shed no tears if lots of people do this to them now.

hoodoof 9y ago

>>admitting their security allowed an ex-admin to ransack everything What, exactly can be done to secure a company against a malicious systems admin? These are the guys typically with not only the keys to everything but also the knowledge of how it all works. You say that the company cannot be trusted for "allowing" this to happen. I know quite alot about this stuff, and for MOST companies, they simply have to trust that the people with the keys to the castle with behave responsibly. There are ways to design infrastructure such that it is protected from its builders and keepers, but this is very very hard and complex and expensive. Presumably you work for a company that has taken steps to ensure this will never happen, what are they?

kelnos 9y ago
You should be trivially able to secure your company against an ex admin, though -- why was this ex-admin's credentials not revoked immediately after their employment ended?
- x0 9y ago
  Who's saying they weren't? I'm sure that administrator would have been able to plant subtle backdoors, or find and not fix vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, during their time there. In which case it wouldn't matter that their credentials were revoked.
  - tajen 9y ago
    Honest question: Are Ansible + peer reviews enough to secure sysadmin work? Of course they can log on the machine to open a backdoor, but they are supposed to be regularly destroyed and rebuilt regularly, so we're theoretically safe, aren't we?
    - arcticfox 9y ago
      Unless they put the backdoor in the image, then it's on all machines. I don't think there's an option here
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  You're assuming he hasn't built in back doors. At my one and only sysadmin job, the network was secured from likes of this guy by the senior engineer, a Vietnam vet with trust issues and whose talents weren't only technical. Nothing says "web of trust" like knowing your boss could show up at your door with a shotgun demanding answers.
- imron 9y ago
  > why was this ex-admin's credentials not revoked immediately after their employment ended? Maybe they were but he'd set up time bombs. Maybe the admin was fed up, knew he wanted to burn things down, wiped everything remotely and then never turned up for work and he became an ex employee in the aftermath. It's decidedly not trivial to secure your company against a malicious admin who has control of much of your infrastructure.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago

VW has record sales.