7 ms·

Undersea Cables Off Hawaii Targeted by Malicious Actors

86 points by pain_perdu 4y ago

brunoTbear 4y ago
Notably the attack in this article occurred on land. Also surprising the name and details of the arrested person haven’t been shared.
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  I'm surprised the author says: > HSI is not disclosing the name of the private company in Hawaii targeted, the country where the suspect was arrested or the name of the suspect. and then directly after that implies that Russia is behind the attack: > While it is likely we will never know who attempted the breach, it is clear that the security of our cables are of key interest of the great power adversaries. and this wouldn't be the first time Russia has been linked to a cable attack. The operation was apparently rolled up by an informant. Personally, I would expect better from Russia. They can send their hitmen all over the world to kill dissidents without getting ratted out, but a little cable tapping is too much for someone to hold in?
  - robonerd 4y ago
    > They can send their hitmen all over the world to kill dissidents without getting ratted out, but a little cable tapping is too much for someone to hold in? Well, you have to account for the individual. Suppose this informant is an ethnic Russian working for the targeted company and was approached by Russian intelligence who presumed his ethnic ties would make him a sympathetic collaborator. They might have simply misjudged his character. And obviously an informant can only inform on things he's aware of. A tech worker might be approached as a collaborator for a tech espionage plot, while obviously never being told anything about polonium assassinations.
jabroni_salad 4y ago
I was hoping this would end up being about sharks.
- Agamus 4y ago
  Hey now, sharks are people too - they're not all bad guys.
  - arthurcolle 4y ago
    "Fish are friends, not food"
    - Agamus 4y ago
      "Fish are my friends, and I don't eat my friends" Then again, I'm also allergic.
      - arthurcolle 4y ago
        to all fish?!!
- winternett 4y ago
  Sharks with lasers on their heads would have amped up the scariness quite a bit.... With ransomware asking for One Million Dollars.
yellow_lead 4y ago
Actually the cables weren't targeted, so this is clickbait.
robonerd 4y ago
So it wasn't "undersea cables off Hawaii" that were targeted, but rather servers on Hawaii that service those undersea cables. I expected submarine antics, which would have a much smaller list of suspects. It sounds like this might not even be state-funded.
- ffhhj 4y ago
  I was thinking hackers in a narco-submarine [0], since cartels could perform such operations, and it's not far from their territories. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine They have already taken several cell-towers, why wouldn't they add some fiber...
  - OtmaneBenazzou 4y ago
    they're not real submarines they're just boats really
  - idontpost 4y ago
    > it's not far from their territories I think your sense of geography may be off a bit.
    - ffhhj 4y ago
      It's all about machines and oil, there's been reports of China's fishing boats making it to Galapagos and back, loaded! Don't think they needed a lot of tech to do it.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    Eh, most narco-submarines aren't really submarines; almost all are semi-submersible boats that run low in the water with snorkels. However, organized crime using unmanned true submersibles might [soon, or presently] be feasible. The expertise needed to actually attack a cable in a constructive manner would be a significant barrier to clear, but not inconceivable for crime organizations that can kidnap and coerce tech professionals. The ability to splice fiber underwater with a drone submersible seems extremely advanced though. I think only a few nations might presently have such a capability. Nice summary of narco subs from HI Sutton: http://www.hisutton.com/Narco%20Subs%20101.html http://www.hisutton.com/Narco%20Subs%20101.html and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR18qhnGEpM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR18qhnGEpM
heynowheynow 4y ago
Linda703 4y ago
[dead]
peter_l_downs 4y ago
Here's a much better source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-04-20/an-underwater-hack-and-the-digital-ripple-effects https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-04-20/an-und... in particular, it makes it clearer that this was a cyberattack, rather than a physical attack.
- bombcar 4y ago
  As it is this title is entirely click bait, it worked, I clicked. The article and link should be changed, imo.
shadowgovt 4y ago
Will Manidis: "These attacks are a stark reminder that our internet infrastructure is at incredible risk. A constant reminder that our continued freedom rests on an increasingly vulnerable set of infrastructure that is only waiting to be attacked. And our adversaries know it." Also Will Manidis: tells the story of Operation Ivy Bells, where the US tapped another country's transmission lines Sauce for the goose, right?
- robonerd 4y ago
  Fascists use rifles, and so do those who fight those fascists. Is that hypocrisy? Not really (or if it is, it doesn't matter.) What you're fighting for is what really matters, not having some nebulous moral high-ground in the tools and tactics you employ. The US doesn't have a moral high-ground when it comes to cable tapping, but that doesn't matter.
krallja 4y ago
Do these malicious actors not know about HTTPS?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jtaft 4y ago
  There’s ways around tls, especially if everything isn’t using tls. For instance, bgp hijacking has been used to obtain valid certificates by hijacking domain names. Yes there are mitigations for this, but not everyone enforces them.
ChrisArchitect 4y ago
Interview with Frank Pace, Hawaii office of Homeland Security, from when this was news a month and half ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31190990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31190990
londons_explore 4y ago
I used to be involved in repairs for undersea fiber... Undersea fiber breaks all the time. When it breaks, you can send signals from the ends to find out where the break is. You then dispatch a ship to repair it. However, if the cable breaks in two places at once, you cannot then detect a third break between the two you know about. That means someone who wants to tap your cable needs to break it in three places so that you aren't aware where they put the tap. Surprisingly, it was substantially more frequent than random chance that a cable broke in two places in quick succession. To me that's good evidence that these cables were being tapped. We also encrypted the data on the glass with dedicated per-link encryption units. I don't know if the adversary was hoping to break the encryption or had some way to extract the keys, or was just tapping the cable in case the data was unencrypted. I guess I'll never know.
- anonymousiam 4y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/politics/new-nuclear-sub-is-said-to-have-special-eavesdropping-ability.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/politics/new-nuclear-sub-...
londons_explore 4y ago
It's 2022 and theres still a goldmine of unencrypted data flowing on the public internet and under the ocean. WHY?!?!? It's time some backbone providers just started publishing a sample of plaintext info they see flowing over their networks. A simple tap of 0.0001% of traffic directed through a filter to look for words like "password" and stick it up on a webpage ought to do the trick. Journalists would have a field day for a while trying to write an article about every insecure company, but before long everyone would properly encrypt their traffic to avoid the embarrassment at a minimum!
- t0bia_s 4y ago
  But EU wants to have backdoors for encryption or remove encryption completely.
goatcode 4y ago
>While it is likely we will never know who attempted the breach, it is clear that the security of our cables are of key interest of the great power adversaries. >and this wouldn't be the first time Russia has been linked to a cable attack. Was it Russia? The long stream of tweets fails to mention that in a clear way.
mrtweetyhack 4y ago

86 points by pain_perdu 4y ago

Notably the attack in this article occurred on land. Also surprising the name and details of the arrested person haven’t been shared.

oh_sigh 4y ago
I'm surprised the author says: > HSI is not disclosing the name of the private company in Hawaii targeted, the country where the suspect was arrested or the name of the suspect. and then directly after that implies that Russia is behind the attack: > While it is likely we will never know who attempted the breach, it is clear that the security of our cables are of key interest of the great power adversaries. and this wouldn't be the first time Russia has been linked to a cable attack. The operation was apparently rolled up by an informant. Personally, I would expect better from Russia. They can send their hitmen all over the world to kill dissidents without getting ratted out, but a little cable tapping is too much for someone to hold in?
- robonerd 4y ago
  > They can send their hitmen all over the world to kill dissidents without getting ratted out, but a little cable tapping is too much for someone to hold in? Well, you have to account for the individual. Suppose this informant is an ethnic Russian working for the targeted company and was approached by Russian intelligence who presumed his ethnic ties would make him a sympathetic collaborator. They might have simply misjudged his character. And obviously an informant can only inform on things he's aware of. A tech worker might be approached as a collaborator for a tech espionage plot, while obviously never being told anything about polonium assassinations.

jabroni_salad 4y ago

I was hoping this would end up being about sharks.

Agamus 4y ago
Hey now, sharks are people too - they're not all bad guys.
- arthurcolle 4y ago
  "Fish are friends, not food"
  - Agamus 4y ago
    "Fish are my friends, and I don't eat my friends" Then again, I'm also allergic.
    - arthurcolle 4y ago
      to all fish?!!
winternett 4y ago
Sharks with lasers on their heads would have amped up the scariness quite a bit.... With ransomware asking for One Million Dollars.

yellow_lead 4y ago

Actually the cables weren't targeted, so this is clickbait.

robonerd 4y ago

So it wasn't "undersea cables off Hawaii" that were targeted, but rather servers on Hawaii that service those undersea cables. I expected submarine antics, which would have a much smaller list of suspects. It sounds like this might not even be state-funded.

ffhhj 4y ago
I was thinking hackers in a narco-submarine [0], since cartels could perform such operations, and it's not far from their territories. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narco-submarine They have already taken several cell-towers, why wouldn't they add some fiber...
- OtmaneBenazzou 4y ago
  they're not real submarines they're just boats really
- idontpost 4y ago
  > it's not far from their territories I think your sense of geography may be off a bit.
  - ffhhj 4y ago
    It's all about machines and oil, there's been reports of China's fishing boats making it to Galapagos and back, loaded! Don't think they needed a lot of tech to do it.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Eh, most narco-submarines aren't really submarines; almost all are semi-submersible boats that run low in the water with snorkels. However, organized crime using unmanned true submersibles might [soon, or presently] be feasible. The expertise needed to actually attack a cable in a constructive manner would be a significant barrier to clear, but not inconceivable for crime organizations that can kidnap and coerce tech professionals. The ability to splice fiber underwater with a drone submersible seems extremely advanced though. I think only a few nations might presently have such a capability. Nice summary of narco subs from HI Sutton: http://www.hisutton.com/Narco%20Subs%20101.html http://www.hisutton.com/Narco%20Subs%20101.html and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR18qhnGEpM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR18qhnGEpM

heynowheynow 4y ago

Linda703 4y ago

[dead]

peter_l_downs 4y ago

Here's a much better source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-04-20/an-underwater-hack-and-the-digital-ripple-effects https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-04-20/an-und... in particular, it makes it clearer that this was a cyberattack, rather than a physical attack.

bombcar 4y ago
As it is this title is entirely click bait, it worked, I clicked. The article and link should be changed, imo.

shadowgovt 4y ago

Will Manidis: "These attacks are a stark reminder that our internet infrastructure is at incredible risk. A constant reminder that our continued freedom rests on an increasingly vulnerable set of infrastructure that is only waiting to be attacked. And our adversaries know it." Also Will Manidis: tells the story of Operation Ivy Bells, where the US tapped another country's transmission lines Sauce for the goose, right?

robonerd 4y ago
Fascists use rifles, and so do those who fight those fascists. Is that hypocrisy? Not really (or if it is, it doesn't matter.) What you're fighting for is what really matters, not having some nebulous moral high-ground in the tools and tactics you employ. The US doesn't have a moral high-ground when it comes to cable tapping, but that doesn't matter.

krallja 4y ago

Do these malicious actors not know about HTTPS?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jtaft 4y ago
There’s ways around tls, especially if everything isn’t using tls. For instance, bgp hijacking has been used to obtain valid certificates by hijacking domain names. Yes there are mitigations for this, but not everyone enforces them.

ChrisArchitect 4y ago

Interview with Frank Pace, Hawaii office of Homeland Security, from when this was news a month and half ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31190990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31190990

londons_explore 4y ago

I used to be involved in repairs for undersea fiber... Undersea fiber breaks all the time. When it breaks, you can send signals from the ends to find out where the break is. You then dispatch a ship to repair it. However, if the cable breaks in two places at once, you cannot then detect a third break between the two you know about. That means someone who wants to tap your cable needs to break it in three places so that you aren't aware where they put the tap. Surprisingly, it was substantially more frequent than random chance that a cable broke in two places in quick succession. To me that's good evidence that these cables were being tapped. We also encrypted the data on the glass with dedicated per-link encryption units. I don't know if the adversary was hoping to break the encryption or had some way to extract the keys, or was just tapping the cable in case the data was unencrypted. I guess I'll never know.

anonymousiam 4y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/politics/new-nuclear-sub-is-said-to-have-special-eavesdropping-ability.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/politics/new-nuclear-sub-...

londons_explore 4y ago

It's 2022 and theres still a goldmine of unencrypted data flowing on the public internet and under the ocean. WHY?!?!? It's time some backbone providers just started publishing a sample of plaintext info they see flowing over their networks. A simple tap of 0.0001% of traffic directed through a filter to look for words like "password" and stick it up on a webpage ought to do the trick. Journalists would have a field day for a while trying to write an article about every insecure company, but before long everyone would properly encrypt their traffic to avoid the embarrassment at a minimum!

t0bia_s 4y ago
But EU wants to have backdoors for encryption or remove encryption completely.

goatcode 4y ago

>While it is likely we will never know who attempted the breach, it is clear that the security of our cables are of key interest of the great power adversaries. >and this wouldn't be the first time Russia has been linked to a cable attack. Was it Russia? The long stream of tweets fails to mention that in a clear way.

mrtweetyhack 4y ago