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The evidence that points to Iran comes from a company named, Resecurity. But there are some odd stuff about this company. 1 - their CEO has no real linkedIn hi
by salimmadjd 8y ago
The evidence that points to Iran comes from a company named, Resecurity. But there are some odd stuff about this company.
1 - their CEO has no real linkedIn history [1]
2 - they revenue and employment went off the chart just in 2 quarters [2]
3 - very unclear how they came to this assessment. Especially now that US government is looking for excuses (real or fabricated) to make a case for war with Iran, I look at these evidence with some skepticism.
Am I being over-cynical here?
1 - https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-yoo-365201165/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-yoo-365201165/
2 - https://www.zoominfo.com/c/resecurity-inc/353866377 https://www.zoominfo.com/c/resecurity-inc/353866377
edit - formating.
- Nasrudith 8y agoGiven an absence of even other vague data like 'exfiltrated data IP addresses were registered as Iranian' (not conclusive proof in itself given that the end devices could have been compromised) I'd say there is reason to be skeptical until they can provide more evidence.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- keyme 8y agoI don't have a LinkedIn page, or any other social media for this matter. Does that make me a non-trusrworthy person now? This is horrible. (I don't disagree with your other points).
- appleiigs 8y agoAccording to 2 companies I interviewed with: Yes. I was pissed because if they didn't trust my resume, why even interview me and waste my time.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoYou dodged two bullets. Consider yourself lucky.
- SamReidHughes 8y agoYes, basically. For example, I've used LinkedIn to double check whether I should trust that an online watch buyer is a real person.
- rakoo 8y agoAre you the CEO of a company that works in computer security, where fame is probably more important than in other fields?
- deathhand 8y agoFame does not equal trust. While there may not be any security through obsecurity it is a barrier. As for being a trusted CEO at a certain point its about who you know and who knows you. Do you think the NSA employees all have social media profiles?
- raesene9 8y agoFame doesn't equal trust, but if someone with no public background starts claiming to have been in the NSA/MI6/FSB/whatever, why would you believe them?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rakoo 8y agoFame doesn't equal trust, but trust over time does create recognition (perhaps fame is a bit too strong). My claim is that if no one can vouch for you, how can I trust you?
- komali2 8y agoTo be fair, conceptually the concept of a CEO of a security company with no social media presence at all is not surprising, speaking from my experience with people in this field.
- z3t4 8y agoThis is often overlooked. If your kid wants to work in security it will be hard to get a job if his/her info and history can be found on social media.
- totallybro 8y agowe live in a society.
- peter_retief 8y agoI also dont have a LinkedIn page, quite amusing that people find that a problem
- draugadrotten 8y agoTLDR; in some jobs, you can't have social media accounts. I have some contact with cybersec in Europe and it is very common that cybersec professionals in gov and mil positions do not have any social media accounts under their own name, and certainly not linkedin. Social media makes you too much of a target and reveals too much about your org. When promoted to a public-facing position the person then suddenly "appears" from nowhere and the media profile has as little information as possible. Real professionals use those accounts only from designated computers, and if you are high ranking enough (head of...) in fact never use them at all, but rather have someone else using them for you. All in the name of keeping your own actions and locations away from the curious.
- hopler 8y agoDoes the entire org appear out of nowhere? No. MI5, CIA, Stasi, etc have been quite public about their existence.
- laurentl 8y agoKnowing the organization exists and knowing that someone specifically works the organization are two different things. In fact, this is the defining characteristic of any secret organization (governmental or otherwise: CIA, Stasi, KKK (in the 50s)...) that wants to project power: we exist, we are everywhere but you don’t know who we are.
- DyslexicAtheist 8y agothe point is that there is a LinkedIn page. But all employees are directors or VP's - not a single engineer that works at Rsecurity. Unlikely that they are a front to a US operation. But very likely that it's a start-up that leverages the currently toxic climate in order to get themselves in the news. Making half baked attribution claims is a perfect way to do so. One might even say that not doing so would be leaving money on the table.
- plicense 8y ago+1, I also recently deleted my LinkedIn profile. Taking LinkedIn profile as a sign of authenticity is indeed horrible.
- mcintyre1994 8y agoSlightly less cynical explanation, could it be a parallel construction type thing? Something like: The FBI (or whoever) have espionage on whichever groups and heard data from Citrix being discussed, but they don’t want to reveal that espionage so they reveal it through Resecurity.
- DyslexicAtheist 8y agoI wouldn't rule it out completely but both Hanlon's and Occam's razor would point against it. More likely that it's just another cybersec company that has found a way to newsjack itself into a position of fame via premature attribution.
- TTPrograms 8y agoWtf is this "zoominfo" site that, upon clicking "Read More", tries to drive-by download an exe onto my computer? What is this, 2002?
- Rychard 8y agoWow, I read the EULA-thing for that executable. > I Agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy I understand that I will receive a subscription to Zoominfo Community Edition at no charge in exchange for downloading and installing the ZoomInfo which, among other features involves sharing my business contacts as well as headers and signature blocks from emails that I receive. It's effectively malware though at least they display it up-front, which is more than can be said for most.
- technion 8y agoI've looked over their website and I'm confused about what they actually do. They are "trusted by leading Fortune 500 corporations" apparently (with logos for Microsoft and Amazon), but the entire "Interested in our solutions" section is a sign up form. What am I signing up for? It's unusual for a company to barely try to promote their products.
- stormbeard 8y agoThey’re most famous for their hypervisor and virtualized desktop software.
- crispyambulance 8y agoYes, it makes you wonder, how does a small company pop into existence straight into class-A office space in downtown LA, and within the span of what? two years? claims to have done business with a dozen or so heavyweight companies. And what is their web presence? Vague, inscrutable C-suite-speak about security, and one blockbuster claim in the Citrix break. At some point, Occam's razor will favor that this company is having its strings pulled by some larger entity that doesn't want to be revealed.
- tyingq 8y agoThe address "555 West 5th St, Los Angeles, California" has a WeWork space in it.
- 2arrs2ells 8y agoAgreed that something seems off. Generous interpretation - they're brand new (first Tweet 2/13/2019, first blog 2/19/2019). Would love to know if those logos & awards are legit (quick search of the awards makes some look like pay to win).
- technion 8y agoThe FAQ page: How Can I Improve my Chances of Receiving an Award? One answer is: Sponsor the Cybersecurity Excellence Awards There's a voting scheme, but the FAQ does state: The popular vote will only be considered if two or more nomination are tied for an award
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoIt’s absolutely reasonable to be critical of any accusations that “Iran did it” or any other nation that the US considers enemies. Didn’t our security ministers claim North Korea was behind the Sony hacks when Obama was in office? We were never given any proof, so it’s impossible to verify... When you consider the way we lie on international affairs, all statements our government makes must be considered suspect. This is not unique to the US by the way, so treat your own state similarly.
- silpol 8y agothere is one small nuisance here - if we start to treat all governments equally skeptic, we should also "fry live" all large corporations too.
- cbluth 8y agoHow did we come to this imbalance?
- mmjaa 8y agoState secrecy being used as an excuse for violence. A truly free people keep no secrets.
- killjoywashere 8y agoTruly free people are free to keep all the secrets they want.
- edoo 8y agoGood catch, that is called a 3 letter agency front.
- _pdp_ 8y agoThere is almost no information about this company. I did a passive recon and this is what I've got: https://recon.secapps.com/f/EMh9 https://recon.secapps.com/f/EMh9
- deathhand 8y agoThat's a really cool service. Thanks for sharing.
- raverbashing 8y agoYou can hide your linkedin history from people that are not connected to you (or your whole profile). It's a privacy option.
- eikxyz 8y ago1 Resecurity's wordpress site has directory listing turned on. Most content on the website seems to have been uploaded in february. 2 The services that does the press releases looks suspicious. 3 The second service also looks suspicious 4 Golden Bridge Silver and Gold Award winners... Anyone heard of this? Seems they sell thophies [1] https://resecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/ https://resecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/ [2] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/resecurity-names-ian-cook-as-strategic-adviser-300705772.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/resecurity-names-ia... [3] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190226005414/en/Resecurity-Recognized-Cybersecurity-Excellence-Awards-Forensics-Risk/ https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190226005414/en/Res... [4] https://goldenbridgeawards.com/store/ https://goldenbridgeawards.com/store/ Looks like a fish, smells like a fish
- kristianc 8y agoWhat's suspicious about PR Newswire / Business Wire? They're the industry standard wire tools in Public Relations. The Golden Bridge trophies seem to be available to buy if you've won.
- hopler 8y agoOnly fake awards sell trophies. they give the award to everything and make money in trophy sales. See also SuperDoctors, Who's Who, and pay to publish journals with no peer reviews.
- laurentl 8y agoI don’t know specifically about Golden Bridge but I have been on the receiving end of other trophy clearinghouses: we were notified we had won a whatever of the year award without even applying for it and that we could purchase the actual trophy for a very reasonable price. Basically these companies’ business is selling overpriced crystal trinkets.
- kristianc 8y agoAs have I, it's a fairly common racket. However, rights to a trophy / rights to use the logo etc are also sold by perfectly legitimate awards too.
- EGreg 8y agoWe said North Korea was behind the SONY hack. We said Assad is bombing his own people with chemical weapons, which would make zero strategic sense considering he was already winning with conventional weapons and that was literally the only way to invite the wrath of the international community We said Saddam had WMDs And so on. So the word of the intelligence community for many would come with a huge grain of salt. Meanwhile the Saudis are getting lots of weapons from the USA and we barely report anything they do in Yemen. They bombed a schoolbus full of children. Kashoggi was supposed to have had evidence they used chemical weapons. The exported salafist ideology and financed Al Qaieda, which attacked the USA on our own soil, but in declassified docs we learn the FBI helped escort families of the hijackers back to Saudi Arabia. The FBI under both Mueller and Comey blocked the families of 9/11 victims from getting information on Saudis. The 9/11 commission found it was systematically lied to by the army, and considered referring the matter to the justice department but ran out of time and was never renewed. Meanwhile a firefight in Benghazi has had 10 commissions. Our foreign policy is simply crazy. We help Mujahideen in Afghanistan oust the Soviets, who were bringing rights and education to women as they had done in Uzbekistan decades earlier etc. Then after 9/11 we came back and occupied the country ourselves, and fought the Taliban for years, in order to — wait for it — help women and secular people the same as the Soviets were doing. And now we are leaving having spent trillions and the Taliban is gonna take over. Smart? We help install Saddam, give him weapons against Iran, then fight him, then remove him and install an Iran-allied Shiite government. Despite spending trillions in our pentagon (which are never accounted for), we somehow “forget” to put locks our humvees and tanks and Saddam’s sunni baathist forces take them and defect to ISIS. Somehow the Sunnis ALWAYS wind up with American weapons and the Socialists and Shiites are funded by Iran to defend themselves against Sunni insurgents. Is this a coincidence?
- mmjaa 8y agoIt is truly a shame that you are being downvoted, presumably by Americans too terrified of their own shame for participating in the acts you've described. But the truth survives downvotes. HN is probably not (yet) the right audience for these kinds of truth - but no matter the discouragement, please continue to seek the truth about Americas involvement in these heinous, disgusting human rights abuses. Yemen is a disaster of American making and is reason enough, alone, to dissuade any assumption of moral authority by those who consider the USA the worlds mightiest cop, when it should be recognised, nearly exclusively, as a criminal thug pandering to other criminal thug states. In spite of the downvotes, know and recognise that there are people in the HN scene who do not stand idly by, ignorant of what is being done in the name of Americans around the world. The support of the Saudi Arabian terrorist regime by the USA will not long stand unacknowledged!
- mmjaa 8y agoWe most definitely need to see real evidence in these kinds of cases. It is not enough to be told 'the experts say it is so' - the case must be made public. Too many times we are led into disaster and tragedy by secrets.
- sametmax 8y agoGiven the history of states to lie and manipulate to get into war, and since the USA proved to be particularly ok with it during the last decades, I'd say being cynical should be the default mode for this kind of analysis. If you are wrong, you are being over protective about peace, so what ?
- lern_too_spel 8y agoNeither the US government nor Citrix have implicated Iran. Resecurity came out of the woodwork contacting media companies about its supposed research after Citrix posted a brief statement explaining the FBI had notified it of a breach.
- lern_too_spel 8y agoThe same company also blamed a hack in Australia on Iran, which the Australian government does not agree with. https://www.itwire.com/security/86141-iran-or-china-competing-claims-about-actor-behind-parliament-hack.html https://www.itwire.com/security/86141-iran-or-china-competin...
- jonodubs 8y agoAnd to add to it, their facebook page only has 20 likes. Their first post is dated 14 feb 2019 with over 10,000 engagement (likes, reactions), while their post the next day has only 1 like. Also their fan club looks to be mainly from Thailand (not english speakers from the profile names). Definitely a few red flags.
- beepboopbeep 8y agoThe text on the site alone is a red flag. It might as well be Latin gibberish. And the "awards" aren't linked to anything. Some of them are just silly, like this one: https://resecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/award-4.png https://resecurity.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/award-4.pn... which was apparently uploaded last month...
- AchoosRazor 8y agoFounded in 1989, Citrix provides SaaS to most of the Fortune 500, with $3B revenue. Is your theory is that they either destroyed their company (and risked their careers of perhaps 8K employees), because a few fringe actors in the current administration asked them to help pin this on Iran? Or is your theory that the US government sent 6TB of data on most of the Fortune 500 companies to an adversary, all to justify some conflict? Note: While oil and perceived geopolitical threats have been misused to start wars, I'm unaware that cyber now ranks at that level. Else, we'd treat DPRK hacking the same as missile testing. Your evidence is that the CEO is not sufficiently networked on linkedin, and their revenue has changed (after the largest tax cut for US corps in world history). Honestly, I'm at a loss for words. I suggest exercise, a healthy diet, and reflection. What you've suggested based on this evidence alone is--and I don't use this word lightly--unhinged and unhealthy. I do believe there is reason to be skeptical of US policy towards Iran. I do not think the US government could convince a 3B revenue company to destroy itself (just think of the shareholder lawsuits), all out of naive patriotic loyalty.
- pandalicious 8y agoLooks like the Iran connection came from a guy with a history of opportunistically jumping in on big security news stories: https://mobile.twitter.com/imdeaconblues/status/1105046806222782466 https://mobile.twitter.com/imdeaconblues/status/110504680622...