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Hyperbole much? WTF is this "urgent"? How might this affect "all internet users"? A hacker group is trying dictionary attacks. Wow. Flagged.

by yuvadam 12y ago

SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
What you're saying is factually incorrect. A hacker group has accumulated thousands (millions?) of email+password pairs. Anyone who uses the same password on all sites could be compromised, even if their password is 16 characters and random (i.e., immune to dictionary attacks).
- ted0 12y ago
  Tim is right. The group has actually acquired ~1.2 billion passwords, which is a obviously a widespread beach.
  - 97s 12y ago
    Does anyone know a list of the sites they got this data from?
    - nwh 12y ago
      There's been stories for a while of massive malware infections sniffing usernames and passwords of infected users. Simply because there's little to give away that such an activity is going on (ie, if you were spamming or mining bitcoin there would be a real-world impact shown immediately) it's extremely hard to confirm or deny if this is happening and at what scale. In my mind it doesn't seem unlikely that would be happening though. Combined with large websites like LinkedIn being compromised, you're looking at a very, very big problem.
zrm 12y ago
> WTF is this "urgent"? How might this affect "all internet users"? Suppose you have a domain registered with Namecheap (or really anyone). You've reused your password and the attackers get into your account at the registrar. What does that get them? First they change the MX record for your domain. Immediately they're receiving all your email. Now that they control your email they can get a domain-validated certificate for your domain. Then they can change all your other DNS records to point at their servers and operate them with valid TLS certificates and MITM all the connections to your real servers. Then they can collect all the credentials of users using your website including the administrative credentials that allow them to compromise your real servers. Now they have all your data and your users' data and your password database and your website is hosting malware. There are very few things more compromising to large numbers of people than attackers quietly getting control of multiple legitimate active domains.

Hyperbole much? WTF is this "urgent"? How might this affect "all internet users"? A hacker group is trying dictionary attacks. Wow. Flagged.

by yuvadam 12y ago

Hyperbole much? WTF is this "urgent"? How might this affect "all internet users"? A hacker group is trying dictionary attacks. Wow. Flagged.

SomeCallMeTim 12y ago

What you're saying is factually incorrect. A hacker group has accumulated thousands (millions?) of email+password pairs. Anyone who uses the same password on all sites could be compromised, even if their password is 16 characters and random (i.e., immune to dictionary attacks).

ted0 12y ago
Tim is right. The group has actually acquired ~1.2 billion passwords, which is a obviously a widespread beach.
- 97s 12y ago
  Does anyone know a list of the sites they got this data from?
  - nwh 12y ago
    There's been stories for a while of massive malware infections sniffing usernames and passwords of infected users. Simply because there's little to give away that such an activity is going on (ie, if you were spamming or mining bitcoin there would be a real-world impact shown immediately) it's extremely hard to confirm or deny if this is happening and at what scale. In my mind it doesn't seem unlikely that would be happening though. Combined with large websites like LinkedIn being compromised, you're looking at a very, very big problem.

zrm 12y ago

> WTF is this "urgent"? How might this affect "all internet users"? Suppose you have a domain registered with Namecheap (or really anyone). You've reused your password and the attackers get into your account at the registrar. What does that get them? First they change the MX record for your domain. Immediately they're receiving all your email. Now that they control your email they can get a domain-validated certificate for your domain. Then they can change all your other DNS records to point at their servers and operate them with valid TLS certificates and MITM all the connections to your real servers. Then they can collect all the credentials of users using your website including the administrative credentials that allow them to compromise your real servers. Now they have all your data and your users' data and your password database and your website is hosting malware. There are very few things more compromising to large numbers of people than attackers quietly getting control of multiple legitimate active domains.