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Some other info: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/03/git_ransomware_bitcoin/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/03/git_ransomware_bitc...

yoz-y 7y ago
Out of all things to hold for ransom git repos seem like a bad idea. Most of the time there are multiple clones lying around anyways. I agree that having the source code leak can be bad news, but the code itself being secret should not be a critical part of the business.
- Operyl 7y ago
  So you’re telling me that if, say, Google’s Search algorithm got leaked it wouldn’t seriously hinder their business? There’s definitely cases where leaking a business’ code can be pretty disastrous.
  - raverbashing 7y ago
    > So you’re telling me that if, say, Google’s Search algorithm got leaked Google's search algorithm was public for a long time [0], it's been improved now and more under the curtains, but the answer is no. Google wins not only by technology, but also by size of the index [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
    - tyingq 7y ago
      I believe Google has also bolted enough ML to search that they couldn't really recreate current search with just code.
      - rightbyte 7y ago
        Also the code base is probably so big and esoteric that there is no way to replicate the services without knowledge external to the repo. You can get bits and parts and it would be disastrous for Google, but you would need 1000 engineers to reverse engineer the source code into some working search engine or what ever service you would want to replicate. I've been thinking about what if the competitors got hold of my employers code base. I think it would require years of reverse engineering to get anything useful out of it for their product, and that they could just as well put that effort into their product directly without espionage.
- ctennis1 7y ago
  Probably not, but I suspect some people will still pay the ransom anyway. Keep in mind, many people also do keep "secrets" used for other authenticating to other services in their git repos - even though it's a terrible idea.
  - jobigoud 7y ago
    These secrets are now compromised anyway.

yoz-y 7y ago

Out of all things to hold for ransom git repos seem like a bad idea. Most of the time there are multiple clones lying around anyways. I agree that having the source code leak can be bad news, but the code itself being secret should not be a critical part of the business.

Operyl 7y ago
So you’re telling me that if, say, Google’s Search algorithm got leaked it wouldn’t seriously hinder their business? There’s definitely cases where leaking a business’ code can be pretty disastrous.
- raverbashing 7y ago
  > So you’re telling me that if, say, Google’s Search algorithm got leaked Google's search algorithm was public for a long time [0], it's been improved now and more under the curtains, but the answer is no. Google wins not only by technology, but also by size of the index [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank
  - tyingq 7y ago
    I believe Google has also bolted enough ML to search that they couldn't really recreate current search with just code.
    - rightbyte 7y ago
      Also the code base is probably so big and esoteric that there is no way to replicate the services without knowledge external to the repo. You can get bits and parts and it would be disastrous for Google, but you would need 1000 engineers to reverse engineer the source code into some working search engine or what ever service you would want to replicate. I've been thinking about what if the competitors got hold of my employers code base. I think it would require years of reverse engineering to get anything useful out of it for their product, and that they could just as well put that effort into their product directly without espionage.
ctennis1 7y ago
Probably not, but I suspect some people will still pay the ransom anyway. Keep in mind, many people also do keep "secrets" used for other authenticating to other services in their git repos - even though it's a terrible idea.
- jobigoud 7y ago
  These secrets are now compromised anyway.