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Crowdstrike seems very well-connected politically. The DNC chose to have them forensically examine their hacked servers to the exclusion of the FBI.

by cwkoss 8y ago

tptacek 8y ago
George Kurtz is not a Democrat. Crowdstrike is also a giant in this field. I assume the connection is, the DNC wanted to go with a safe, big name.
- monocasa 8y ago
  Political connectedness exists on many spectrums other than the usual Red vs Blue. An interesting one you can see from the outside (that might not have anything to do here, it's just an example) is CIA vs NSA. You can see Nancy Pelosi's statements back that look like "we've always been at war with East Asia" and "we've never been at war with East Asia" wrt to the intelligence apparatus depending on which agency screwed up. And Dmitri Alperovitch seems to see the shadows of the Russian political establishment everywhere he looks, though, which makes Crowdstrike an... interesting choice for that work. Edit: added the top paragraph.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    All available evidence from credible sources seems to back up Crowdstrike's attribution. I'm sure you can find a countervailing argument or two from some credible source, but, to say the least, it does not look like Crowdstrike took a flyer on this. I don't think the Russia investigation has thing #1 to do with Crowdstrike's IPO or what their business is like, though. That's much simpler: EDR is the new antivirus, antivirus has historically been one of the most lucrative enterprise technology products (to say nothing of security products), and Crowdstrike has a commanding share of the EDR market.
    - monocasa 8y ago
      You also have a former UK ambassador saying "the DNC wasn't hacked. I was part of the process of exfiltrating the files from the DNC". And I think a general willingness to parrot establishment rhetoric is part of why they're as big as they are.
      - tptacek 8y ago
        Well, if the "former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan" says so, who am I to tell you to stop reading Infowars?
        monocasa 8y ago
        I mean, yeah, the former ambassador who lost his job for having too much integrity to play the established game says "hey, the public record here isn't right, and I know because I was one of the players. Here's the timeline that lines up exactly with what happened and my previously published schedule", and the reaction is either not mentioning him at all, or saying the equivalent of "lol, idk, fuck that guy I guess", then yeah I'm going to give some respect to what he says.
- cwkoss 8y ago
  Crowdstrike's analysis of the DNC servers arguably started national discussion of the "Russiagate" controversy. A tin-foil-hat wearer could interpret their actions as serving whoever has a vested interest in Russiagate.
  - resters 8y ago
    It’s hard not to draw that conclusion.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      So, just to see if I can follow this: the claim here is that Crowdstrike attributed the DNC hack to Russia --- as did the US IC and DHS --- to curry favor with the Democrats, who were not in power at the time the attribution occurred, presumably so that when they re-took power sometime in the future they'd pay Crowdstrike back? As a reminder: the current administration is deeply invested in a narrative that every aspect of the 2016 election was essentially on the up-and-up, and that the DNC leaks were fair game, as they had to be, since the President enthusiastically exploited them on the campaign trail, at one notorious point even publicly begging for additional leaks. The GOP, which controlled both houses of Congress when the attribution occurred, is also famously indentured to that President, who, again, would like nothing in the universe more than to shift accusations to Russia back at the DNC itself. The conspiracy theory here doesn't even make surface-level sense.
      - cwkoss 8y ago
        I think a more plausible theory is that the 'cybersecurity industrial complex' has a vested interest in general increases in cybersecurity spending. DNC had an interest in distracting from the previous HRC email leak. Guccifer2.0 didn't really leak anything damning - so perhap this 'leak' was a red herring. DNC insiders could have performed the 'hack' and fabricated the evidence of attribution, then perform the 'leaking' themselves. DNC gets a distraction and makes opponent look friendly w/ foreign power, Crowdstrike gets more revenue from increased paranoia. Probably incorrect... but more plausible.
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badrabbit 8y ago
So is FireEye (and FireEye is inqtel/cia funded). Crowdstrike are the best in the game.
p0rkbelly 8y ago
They were also on retainer for many republicans. They are an American cybersecurity company.
dmix 8y ago
That's because Crowdstrike hires plenty of ex-NSA/CIA, who are usually the people FBI would love to hire. Doesn't mean they're the best in the industry but definitely in that mega-corp/gov tier they seem to be #1.

Crowdstrike seems very well-connected politically. The DNC chose to have them forensically examine their hacked servers to the exclusion of the FBI.

by cwkoss 8y ago

Crowdstrike seems very well-connected politically. The DNC chose to have them forensically examine their hacked servers to the exclusion of the FBI.

tptacek 8y ago

George Kurtz is not a Democrat. Crowdstrike is also a giant in this field. I assume the connection is, the DNC wanted to go with a safe, big name.

monocasa 8y ago
Political connectedness exists on many spectrums other than the usual Red vs Blue. An interesting one you can see from the outside (that might not have anything to do here, it's just an example) is CIA vs NSA. You can see Nancy Pelosi's statements back that look like "we've always been at war with East Asia" and "we've never been at war with East Asia" wrt to the intelligence apparatus depending on which agency screwed up. And Dmitri Alperovitch seems to see the shadows of the Russian political establishment everywhere he looks, though, which makes Crowdstrike an... interesting choice for that work. Edit: added the top paragraph.
- tptacek 8y ago
  All available evidence from credible sources seems to back up Crowdstrike's attribution. I'm sure you can find a countervailing argument or two from some credible source, but, to say the least, it does not look like Crowdstrike took a flyer on this. I don't think the Russia investigation has thing #1 to do with Crowdstrike's IPO or what their business is like, though. That's much simpler: EDR is the new antivirus, antivirus has historically been one of the most lucrative enterprise technology products (to say nothing of security products), and Crowdstrike has a commanding share of the EDR market.
  - monocasa 8y ago
    You also have a former UK ambassador saying "the DNC wasn't hacked. I was part of the process of exfiltrating the files from the DNC". And I think a general willingness to parrot establishment rhetoric is part of why they're as big as they are.
    - tptacek 8y ago
      Well, if the "former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan" says so, who am I to tell you to stop reading Infowars?
      - monocasa 8y ago
        I mean, yeah, the former ambassador who lost his job for having too much integrity to play the established game says "hey, the public record here isn't right, and I know because I was one of the players. Here's the timeline that lines up exactly with what happened and my previously published schedule", and the reaction is either not mentioning him at all, or saying the equivalent of "lol, idk, fuck that guy I guess", then yeah I'm going to give some respect to what he says.
cwkoss 8y ago
Crowdstrike's analysis of the DNC servers arguably started national discussion of the "Russiagate" controversy. A tin-foil-hat wearer could interpret their actions as serving whoever has a vested interest in Russiagate.
- resters 8y ago
  It’s hard not to draw that conclusion.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    So, just to see if I can follow this: the claim here is that Crowdstrike attributed the DNC hack to Russia --- as did the US IC and DHS --- to curry favor with the Democrats, who were not in power at the time the attribution occurred, presumably so that when they re-took power sometime in the future they'd pay Crowdstrike back? As a reminder: the current administration is deeply invested in a narrative that every aspect of the 2016 election was essentially on the up-and-up, and that the DNC leaks were fair game, as they had to be, since the President enthusiastically exploited them on the campaign trail, at one notorious point even publicly begging for additional leaks. The GOP, which controlled both houses of Congress when the attribution occurred, is also famously indentured to that President, who, again, would like nothing in the universe more than to shift accusations to Russia back at the DNC itself. The conspiracy theory here doesn't even make surface-level sense.
    - cwkoss 8y ago
      I think a more plausible theory is that the 'cybersecurity industrial complex' has a vested interest in general increases in cybersecurity spending. DNC had an interest in distracting from the previous HRC email leak. Guccifer2.0 didn't really leak anything damning - so perhap this 'leak' was a red herring. DNC insiders could have performed the 'hack' and fabricated the evidence of attribution, then perform the 'leaking' themselves. DNC gets a distraction and makes opponent look friendly w/ foreign power, Crowdstrike gets more revenue from increased paranoia. Probably incorrect... but more plausible.

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badrabbit 8y ago

So is FireEye (and FireEye is inqtel/cia funded). Crowdstrike are the best in the game.

p0rkbelly 8y ago

They were also on retainer for many republicans. They are an American cybersecurity company.

dmix 8y ago

That's because Crowdstrike hires plenty of ex-NSA/CIA, who are usually the people FBI would love to hire. Doesn't mean they're the best in the industry but definitely in that mega-corp/gov tier they seem to be #1.