4 ms·

Paying ransom makes it profitable. If you make something profitable there will be more of it as there is an incentive for individuals to continue those attacks.

by avgDev 7y ago

Paying ransom makes it profitable. If you make something profitable there will be more of it as there is an incentive for individuals to continue those attacks. Honestly lack of back ups is unacceptable. I can accept it if its a young start up handling some basic data and passing payments to an established business. However, any SE, DBA, IT director/admin with some experience should know about backups and push management for them. If management fails to pay for cost of backups, that individual should note it(preferably with a paper trail) and bring it up when shit hits the fan. I will write SQL statements prone to injection, I will hack things together when I have to due to circumstances but I inform management of risks and they make the decision to proceed in a certain way knowing the risk. If they try to light my ass on fire 2 years from now, I will open the email and say "told you so". I have actually done that multiple times already and never got burned.

jrochkind1 7y ago
Welcome to Baltimore. Of COURSE not having backups is unacceptable. Other things that are unacceptable include it taking 3 days to get the city to _turn off the pipe_ in response to a report of a massive leak into a river causing wildlife die-off (https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2019/09/13/water-main-break-causes-fish-kill-in-leakin-park/ https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2019/09/13/water-main-break-ca...), spending money to put in a bike lane then more money to take out a bike lane when nothing in particular has changed (at least TWICE https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2019/04/29/roland-park-bike-lanes-project/ https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2019/04/29/roland-park-bike-l... https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-lewis-bike-lane-20190528-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-l...), having a Traffic Director vacancy for 5 years running (https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2019/09/19/a-transportation-department-without-a-traffic-chief-yup-for-five-years-running/ https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2019/09/19/a-transportation-de...), and nobody qualified doing anything about traffic light timing (https://www.baltimoresun.com/ask/bs-ask-traffic-lights-20191015-ietjxqoqkngcvle6xywze65f2e-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/ask/bs-ask-traffic-lights-20191...), I could keep going. Baltimore is basically a 'failed state' of municipal government. While you can "blame the voters", being one myself I literally don't understand what the fuck is going on or what to do about it, even when we elect people who seem like they might do something different, it remains the same. So... if individual people working in IT protected their own asses by documenting that someone told them to do the wrong thing... that's great for them, what it does for Baltimore is _nothing_. The IT director lost his job (probably? Maybe? So far just on unpaid leave?), which he thoroughly deserves, but that ALSO does nothing for Baltimore, cause people like this keep getting replaced, and it still doesn't get better. Anyway, this actually doesn't have much to do with ransomware in general, but yeah.

by avgDev 7y ago

jrochkind1 7y ago

Welcome to Baltimore. Of COURSE not having backups is unacceptable. Other things that are unacceptable include it taking 3 days to get the city to _turn off the pipe_ in response to a report of a massive leak into a river causing wildlife die-off (https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2019/09/13/water-main-break-causes-fish-kill-in-leakin-park/ https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2019/09/13/water-main-break-ca...), spending money to put in a bike lane then more money to take out a bike lane when nothing in particular has changed (at least TWICE https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2019/04/29/roland-park-bike-lanes-project/ https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2019/04/29/roland-park-bike-l... https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-lewis-bike-lane-20190528-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-l...), having a Traffic Director vacancy for 5 years running (https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2019/09/19/a-transportation-department-without-a-traffic-chief-yup-for-five-years-running/ https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2019/09/19/a-transportation-de...), and nobody qualified doing anything about traffic light timing (https://www.baltimoresun.com/ask/bs-ask-traffic-lights-20191015-ietjxqoqkngcvle6xywze65f2e-story.html https://www.baltimoresun.com/ask/bs-ask-traffic-lights-20191...), I could keep going. Baltimore is basically a 'failed state' of municipal government. While you can "blame the voters", being one myself I literally don't understand what the fuck is going on or what to do about it, even when we elect people who seem like they might do something different, it remains the same. So... if individual people working in IT protected their own asses by documenting that someone told them to do the wrong thing... that's great for them, what it does for Baltimore is _nothing_. The IT director lost his job (probably? Maybe? So far just on unpaid leave?), which he thoroughly deserves, but that ALSO does nothing for Baltimore, cause people like this keep getting replaced, and it still doesn't get better. Anyway, this actually doesn't have much to do with ransomware in general, but yeah.