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Hackers spent 2 years looting secrets of chipmaker NXP before being detected
- fsflover 3y agoRecent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38406429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38406429
- baybal2 3y agoWith "cloud" services being mentioned, they say hackers used cloud storage to evade detection, but what if the initial intrusion vector itself was planted by an AWS employee? Saudis used their nationals inside Twitter quite brazenly. Imagine how many other rouge nation nationals are there being used by their governments.
- Jerrrry 3y agoAWS infrastructure is complaint, Twitter isn't. Apples to orangutans.
- MakeThemMoney 3y agoCompliant with what?
- hulitu 3y agoWith CIA requirements. /s
- tsujamin 3y agothat seems like a wildly overcomplicated method of hacking a commercial organisation...
- slt2021 3y agothese 3rd world authoritarian regimes try to do this all the time, for example Russia routinely tries to recruit russian-speaking engineers at US/EU companies for industrial espionage. for example [1] there are more cases that nobody publishes about - a lot of "ransomware" incidents - are actually employee who suddenly received email with malicious URL and clicked on it infecting his work computer - gaining plausable deniability by being "dumb IT user" while collecting $$$$ from criminal org for granting them initial access. a lot of smaller/obscure outsource IT companies can cause you ransomware incident if you decide to terminate software development contract with them, because these could be literally North Korean hackers working as your sysadmins [2]. 1. https://cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/hacker-offered-russian-speaking-tesla-employee-for-1-million-to-execute-ransomware-attack/ https://cpomagazine.com/cyber-security/hacker-offered-russia... 2. https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-weapons-program-it-workers-f3df7c120522b0581db5c0b9682ebc9b https://apnews.com/article/north-korea-weapons-program-it-wo...
- WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago[flagged]
- gruez 3y agoAnd what evidence is there that it's mossad?
- WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago[flagged]
- swarnie 3y agoThat article appears unrelated to NXP.
- WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago[flagged]
- sva_ 3y agoClearly Mossad is flagging your comments s.t. the truth doesn't come out /s I do think you have a point but just randomly throwing around accusations without evidence doesn't seem to be helping your case.
- constantly 3y agoFor what it’s worth, I flagged the persons comment specifically because they are on the right track and I don’t want the truth to get out.
- saagarjha 3y agoWe thank you for your service.
- miohtama 3y agoRansomware attack could have been better option for NXP. It would likely be over quickly and force them to take security seriously. Now, they were bleeding industrial and trade secrets for more than a year.
- ETH_start 3y agoIt's hard to argue against the proposition that ransomware is a canary for security vulnerabilities. Depending on how much commercial espionage it reduces, it may be a net cost saving in the long-run.
- hulitu 3y agoPlaying the devil's advocate: if their network was like their datasheets, i'm feeling sorry for the "hackers". /s
- pclmulqdq 3y agoIf they had the decency to release some good documentation for NXP's devices, I'm sure nobody would mind the hack. I guess we figured out how one nation-state got transparency from NXP.
- bpye 3y agoRelated: Another Vulnerability in the LPC55S69 ROM https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30778778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30778778
- shaktaexe 3y agoThis was disclosed about a year and half ago.
- bootloop 3y agoI am sure there was nothing of that sort to be found. :-)
- Scoundreller 3y agoThat explains why they couldn’t figure out what’s going on internally, even after being inside for 2 years. Probably got lost and couldn’t figure out how to even get out.
- incahoots 3y agoExplains why they stuck around for 2 years lmao
- sonicanatidae 3y agoFirst, that documentation would have to exist. ;)
- autoexec 3y ago> It's likely the TA knows of specific flaws reported to NXP that can be leveraged to exploit devices the chips are embedded in, and that's assuming they didn't implement backdoors themselves. Over 2.5 years (at least), that's not unrealistic.” I assume these chips had backdoors long before Chinese hackers started collecting files and saving them to dropbox. Pretty convenient to be able to blame Chinese hackers for any backdoors that come to light now.
- bell-cot 3y agoConvenient how, for who? "Our products only have backdoors because China added those to our woulda-been-secure-if-they-hadn't designs..." That does not sound like a winning sales pitch to me.
- jlarocco 3y agoPresumably convenient for the group who really added the backdoors.
- bell-cot 3y agoUnless that group is both (1) caught, and (2) threatened with serious punishment for adding backdoors, I see no convenience. Any uncaught or beyond-reach-of-the-law group would want to take credit for their own work.
- GartzenDeHaes 3y agoThe implication is that it's a nation state, and not one of the "bad guys".
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago> A prolific espionage hacking group with ties to China Lovely
- nickdothutton 3y agoYour NXP HSM or SHE may not be as secure as you had hoped. Sigh.
- ganzuul 3y agoWhat does "several sources" actually mean? Who should that exclude?
- mips_r4300i 3y agoDomestic Chinese MCU company popping up with suspiciously similar part functionality to NXP's in 3, 2, 1...
- LeopoldBloom 3y agoTwo major pillars of NXP's sales strategy are their security architecture and integration with other NXP devices (primarily connectivity ICs since the Marvell Wi-fi acquisition). They are typically more expensive than competitors (Infineon, TI, ST, etc). This is due to their strategy to only compete in markets where they believe they can command a healthy profit margin. Going to be a difficult strategy to maintain in a few years when there are identical products from China for 1/2 the cost...
- consumer451 3y agoI wonder if it would be possible and likely for products based in I.P. theft to be banned for import into Western markets.
- fxtentacle 3y agoPeople would get pretty upset when the shelves are empty. Almost no technology is invented in a vacuum. Also, FTDI once tried to detect and disable Chinese fakes of their chips and it did not work well for them.
- hulitu 3y ago> People would get pretty upset when the shelves are empty Haha, funny that you remind about empty shelves when talking about NXP.
- toasted-subs 3y agoSeems like what I've had to deal with in real life with mean people bullying me and never letting me have an actual secret.