Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/17/nuclear-agency-hacked-officials-inform-congress-447855

by plankers • 6 years ago

295 200 6 years ago

The solarwinds hack gets more expansive every time we find out more. This really doesn't bode well.

jand• 6 years ago

And this is why all the "they got into our left pocket but could not access the right pocket" statements can be ignored for now. It would be better to assume that every network/system in smelling range of a Solarwinds sticker is compromised.

wespiser_2018• 6 years ago

Yea, what concerns me is the sophistication of the attack, and just how widespread the damage/fallout is. The attack very good cover, while everyone scrambles to limit exposure and not sure exactly what to look for.

bredren• 6 years ago

What concerns me is lack of clear precedent for some equitable retaliation.

And if some equitable retaliation is designed would there be public support for it if it were to include conventional warfare in some proxy fight.

Much of the country has been told that China is the enemy and investigations into Russian interference in our country is a hoax.

If this is more work from the fancy bear folks this is problematic.

The US is a month away from a new president.

The new president’s authority to act against this attack continued to be undermined by the sitting president who just fired the head of cyber command because he said the election itself was secure. Not because it wasn’t, but because he said it was to the public!

I can not think of a more sophisticated and long term military intelligence operation than the epic we are witnessing right now.

The United States could not be in a weaker position than now.

tmaly• 6 years ago

The CISA post yesterday https://us-cert.cisa.gov/ncas/alerts/aa20-352a

mentioned "Note (Updated December 18, 2020): CISA has evidence of initial access vectors other than the SolarWinds Orion platform."

This raised any eye that there are other attack vectors that have been found but which they have not or do not have information on.

neom• 6 years ago

Much better article: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/17/nuclear-agency-hack...

Firerouge• 6 years ago

Dang, the link should be replaced with this one. The reuters article is a single sentences simply referencing this original article

traes• 6 years ago

I love that it's impossible to tell if you're mildly upset at the current state of this post or asking a mod to change it.

plankers2• 6 years ago

You have my apologies and my thanks for posting a better link :)

dang4• 6 years ago

Changed from https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN28R34N. Thanks!

clankyclanker2• 6 years ago

We’re all still here, so it could’ve gone slightly worse.

Maybe not much, though.

sjg007• 6 years ago

I wonder if we have dead man switches.. In a MAD world you would want to launch without human intervention from isolated systems.... I wonder how that would work... maybe it's not possible.

clankyclanker2• 6 years ago

At least two, one for each Cold War power:

- ERCS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/DRC-8_Emergency_Rocket_Comm...

- Perimeter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand

ehnto2• 6 years ago

I have always wondered, if I were at the helm of a government asserting MAD capabilities, I would probably just not hold up my end of the bargain. Threatening MAD makes total sense, but once your enemy has assured your own destruction, is there much sense in actually following through? All you are doing is assuring millions of innocent people die for the actions of some generals.

All this to say, that it is unthinkably inhuman to have MAD be an automated response.

ineedasername7• 6 years ago

Though it's not what they've done so far, it's what they learned, and what they may have left behind that is more problematic.

bigphishy5• 6 years ago

I am pointing the finger at Microsoft for allowing bad security practice in windows kernel, architecture and other aspects of the Windows operating system. I am have to hand it to Microsoft for the good job security.

However without knowing the extent of the incident, and going off of this part:

"At this point, the investigation has found that the malware has been isolated to business networks only..."

It is more than likely this news story is overblown.

ineedasername7• 6 years ago

They said "business network" so MS is a likely suspect. Then again the full extent of SolarWind's contracts with the government, and the impact of their own hack, aren't completely clear and it would be a decent sized coincidence if multiple nation-state hacks around the same time we're unrelated.

google234123• 6 years ago

Yeah, and if MS tries and change this and make the kernel more secure I would expect huge outrage on HN from people complaining about MS restricting their freedom.

mindslight• 6 years ago

Having the police put a lock on your front door that you don't have the key to will technically make your home "more secure", but not in any way that's useful.

Locking down devices is actually just giving up on security. Trusted code and centralized review don't scale. Real security implies effectively mediating between many different interacting parties, not simply reducing the number of them.

gnramires• 6 years ago

UAC (User Account Control) is some of the best thing Microsoft ever did for their security (and it might have inspired android permission system), probably following the Unix. I feel my naivete of complaining at the time I had to click a security prompt.

It's still sorely missing fine-grained control like network access (perhaps even fine-grained network access control), and access to various devices and folder locations; within reason, the more controlled and restricted the better.

Linux ought to make a move in this front and gain ground on security advantage: shouldn't we be able to give access to specific processes (say an installed game or text application) to specific folders and devices? Why should a game be able to read all my files (and not just its own folder), and why should any of those be able to use the network?

darksaints• 6 years ago

I'm not a fan of Windows in the slightest, but it should be noted that the Linux kernel has been moving in that direction for the better part of 2 decades now. The amount of privileged code running in the kernel now is absolutely mind boggling.

I'm really hoping to see an industrial-scale push to develop a solid headless unix-y userland for SeL4.

pas• 6 years ago

Do you mean eBPF? Or what kind of privileged code is the problem?

Regarding security. I think the problem is simply that neither Linux nor Windows is the right tool for this job. They are secure, but not nuclear arsenal secure. And there is where SeL4 and other formally verified components should come in.

randmeerkat5• 6 years ago

If you were a government agency responsible for a deterrent that has held the peace since WW2 and that deterrent had just been compromised would you tell the public?

_hyn32• 6 years ago

Microsoft moved the GDI into the (formerly) NT microkernel back in the switch from NT 3.51 to NT 4.0, for performance reasons -- and it was needed back then.

If the Linux kernel is getting too heavy for you (there really is a lot going on in there now), you can always switch to FreeBSD or OpenBSD. (no snark intended, this is actually quite a viable option for many workloads.)

rurban3• 6 years ago

No, we are talking about security here. FreeBSD is even worse than Linux, and OpenBSD is not much better, just slower.

Microkernels with capabilities are the only way to go. L4, Fiasco, Genode, ...

aerostable_slug• 6 years ago

overblown

I'm not sure about that. For example, FERC doesn't have a non-business network — they aren't a system operator. They do have all kinds of juicy data though, including details of various high voltage interconnects and the like that would be good stuff for an infrastructure attacker.

echelon6• 6 years ago

It feels like we're in the calm before the storm and nobody is watching the approaching squall.

China growing in power and influence, flexing itself on the global stage. The US waning internationally, citizens divided and full of hate.

We're factory-less, fab-less, and have fewer educated. Fewer consumers. Lots of debt.

We have SpaceX, but China's pace of exploration and international cooperation is increasing faster than NASA's.

The only advantage I can think of us our military and navy, but China has carrier-killers and ICBMs.

Zoomers on TikTok hate capitalism and the military, and it seems like they're being indoctrinated by an "algorithm". Or maybe it's the lack of opportunity we're providing for them.

If and when our tech companies and entertainment companies get leapfrogged, what will we have to export that brings us wealth?

What happens to democracy and liberty when the top economy and producer in the world is a single-party state?

I hope we're hacking back just as hard. That's what the NSA should be doing rather than domestic spying.

jtdev4• 6 years ago

Too bad Biden is a China lap dog...

mhh__7• 6 years ago

Meanwhile the President salutes Kim Jong-Un

kgin• 6 years ago

A lot of countries aren't number one.

justinzollars• 6 years ago

no reason the United States has to be an empire

cardamomo3• 6 years ago

Zoomers on TikTok hate capitalism and the military, and it seems like they're being indoctrinated by an "algorithm".

I don't see how that connects to your larger point. Can you please explain?

echelon6• 6 years ago

Capitalism is fuels our wealth machine. The military helps project power and protect our interests.

If younger generations grow up hating these structures, they might vote against them.

ineedasername7• 6 years ago

We make the biggest blockbuster movies. Have you even seen End Game? What about Frozen? (Not the sequel) The snowman Olaf transcends national borders. We'll be fine.

echelon6• 6 years ago

The studio system is shut down and blockbusters aren't coming back. Movies are going straight to streaming. Disney and Warner are doing far-reaching reorgs to see to it. Look also at directors like Nolan and Villeneuve complaining - they know their familiar way of life is coming to an end, and they're struggling to cope with the new reality.

Low-budget is something we'll get schooled on. International studios are just as good as we are.

China owns a number of US studios outright, and they also own a lot of the tooling (eg 40% of Epic Games, which is being used for Star Wars). They're cultivating our tech and using it themselves.

Most of the deep fake research amenable to use in films is coming out of China.

I'm not saying it's a sure thing, but China is in a very good position to attempt a takeover of the movie market if they want to.

edit: I'm now being greeted by "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." on all messages I've attempted to post.

It appears my account got flagged for this thread. I've never seen this before in my ten year history of using HN. Not sure if this is automatic or manually added. Does anybody else know what this is about? [1]

[1] https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/issues...

bigphishy5• 6 years ago

China has massive internal problems, and all data out of china's government are falsified and outright lies. China is a paper tiger in more ways than one. In 10 years, the power struggle between west and east will be a stalemate, and eventually both super powers will be overtaken by a growing power from India. India will be the powerhouse of the 21st century IMHO

person_of_color• 6 years ago

Wake me up when India has a semiconductor fab < 65nm.

advisedwang• 6 years ago

I hear a lot of fear that the US may no longer be on top, from which I assume you are an American. The good news is that Americans (as individual humans) may be better off when America is no longer an empire.

The British empire was good for the rulers and owners of the companies integrated into it, but not for the average brit.

maerF0x05• 6 years ago

any proof of this besides your word? I'd love to read about it.

mhh__7• 6 years ago

Zoomers not liking capitalism is just young people being young.

eplanit• 6 years ago

I think China has been playing us for years, and doing so masterfully. There's no _good_ reason for the US, with our economy and standing, to be ripping itself apart from within -- but, indeed we are.

Not only is China growing in power and influence, as you point out, it has been investing in American media and other industries. They're famous for playing their strategic game over a long span of time (the long game).

My pet theory is that Hollywood, Silicon Valley and the Left are thoroughly (and probably unwittingly) influenced by the infiltration, and are the medium for memes and messaging that divides us so much. It's as though we're about to re-fight the Civil War. China, the master that it is at cultural revolution and re-education, is playing a shrewd game.

I think they're about to beat us cold by causing us to implode from within. If so, it's beyond sad -- but in terms of military strategy, a brilliantly played hand by President Xi and the CCP.

completelylegit• 6 years ago

Is it Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and the Left who are choosing to buy cheap Chinese goods?

Are they forcing Walmart and Amazon to carry those goods?

Are they responsible for the low wages Americans are making?

Did they move manufacturing overseas?

Otherwise a water tight theory ..

netsharc2• 6 years ago

If you're going to throw generalities: Meanwhile the Right believes a guy named Q, that Biden stole the election (despite Giuliani Total Landscaping providing zero evidence), that there's a furniture store selling missing kids hiding in plain sight... Sure, not all of "The Right", but as I said, generalities.

Your bias is showing, and you're totally blinded by propaganda as badly as you accuse some others.

dragonwriter• 6 years ago

My pet theory is that Hollywood, Silicon Valley and the Left are thoroughly (and probably unwittingly) influenced by the infiltration, and are the medium for memes and messaging that divides us so much. It's as though we're about to re-fight the Civil War.

Interesting you should attribute that to “Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and the Left” since the people spreading memes and propaganda literally advocating either a new Civil War and publicly advocating military overthrow of the lawfully elected government are on the Right (the former groups like the Boogaloo bois; the latter a number of prominent figures, including recently pardoned former National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn.)

China, the master that it is at cultural revolution and re-education, is playing a shrewd game.

Both the pro-Trump elites counselling extra-Constitutional violence and some of the more (superficially, at least) grassroots groups in the White nationalist/supremacist vein preaching race war have been well documented to have been engaged with and influenced by Russia; China less so.

FpUser• 6 years ago

"I hope we're hacking back just as hard. That's what the NSA should be doing rather than domestic spying."

You can sleep well. Spying is what every government does.

boomboomsubban4• 6 years ago

I hope we're hacking back just as hard. That's what the NSA should be doing rather than domestic spying

You really care about the ideals of "liberty" and "democracy" I see.

hodgesrm2• 6 years ago

Well, not reacting just encourages more attacks.

echelon6• 6 years ago

If an undemocratic adversary is trying to gain secrets to put them at an advantage against our military, citizens, or economy, it's only fair that we do the same.

They're not going to stop trying. We shouldn't just let it happen.

gen2202• 6 years ago

Bit of a misleading title by Reuters.

They accessed the business networks of the NNSA, the agency responsible for maintaining the nuclear stockpile, but did not access the networks managing the actual nuclear weapons, as the title half-implies.

There was no threat of random nuclear weapon exploits, those networks have not been compromised as far as we know.

Andrex2• 6 years ago

They accessed the business networks of the NNSA, the agency responsible for maintaining the nuclear stockpile, but did not access the networks managing the actual nuclear weapons, as the title half-implies.

That they know of / are admitting at this time.

The damage could really be far worse. It's hard to tell right now I think.

danaur• 6 years ago

But don't you think that the title still is misleading? You can't just say we don't know and then write a title that it happened

ehnto2• 6 years ago

A cold comfort. That is still incredibly embarassing.

vl• 6 years ago

Well, it looks like they started to build up narrative for another military deployment once new president is in power, who cares about specific details?

curiousllama• 6 years ago

Yea, also, who would build a nuclear bomb that could be detonated via the internet? I would be outright shocked if there wasn’t a mechanical part of the process... eg, in the early days, they literally had the warhead and bomb parts physically separated

pmoriarty• 6 years ago

"I would be outright shocked if there wasn’t a mechanical part of the process"

More shocking things have happened, like the nuclear launch codes being "00000000" for 15 years:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nuclear-missile-code-00000000...

geoduck142• 6 years ago

NAAS (Nukes as a Service) is probably part of the JEDI defense contract Azure signed with the government.

marcusverus• 6 years ago

There is an odd quirk in our culture, where lying is universally acknowledged to be toxic behavior, but the use of intentionally misleading language is merely frowned upon--as long as it doesn't contain a falsifiable claim. But this is really a distinction without a difference, as they achieve the same goal, which is to put an idea in the mind of the listener/reader which the speaker/writer knows to be false. After all, lying isn't what got us into the current era of a post-truth public discourse. What got us here is a historical and ongoing toleration of journos and politicians who are careful truth tellers in a technical sense, but liars in practice.

In my opinion, these liars-in-practice are far more pernicious than the liars-in-fact. It's easy to disprove a fact, whereas it takes time, effort, and some analytical ability to unpack a carefully worded untruth.

Apologies for the rant.

asdfasgasdgasdg• 6 years ago

Excellent point. The goal of honest language should be the creation of correct beliefs about reality in the minds of who listens to you, even if those beliefs might sometimes not serve your ends. Otherwise, it's not communication, it's warring against truth.

(Of course, there is disagreement about what is true in many cases, but in this particular case, the reporter or editor presumably knew the difference and went forward with the title anyway.)

tenpies• 6 years ago

I would argue that there's a caveat: if the lie is about a person or group that the mainstream media is active hostile against, lying is not just expected, but encouraged and rewarded.

Or so, anonymous sources familiar with the matter tell me.

ilaksh• 6 years ago

That's not my culture. I don't misrepresent things like that. And I don't frown on I curse. But no one cares what I think.

nappy• 6 years ago

"liars in practice" is uncharitable at best. A headline has some maximum number of words, and there is only so much that can be conveyed. "Technically true" is strong standard to meet in under a sentence. Is this purposefully misleading? I would say no.

gen2202• 6 years ago

It’s interesting to me, because in my mind Reuters is characteristically a good actor in this space, often opting for more of a mouthful but not misleading title.

It might have been an honest mistake? Although it would be surprising to me that a Reuters editor would miss the implication of this headline.

dang4• 6 years ago

(We've since changed the URL and the title, which used to be "U.S. has evidence hackers accessed its nuclear networks")

dlgeek• 6 years ago

That still is the title, as I see it....

dundercoder• 6 years ago

Hopefully the networks that have launch and scheduling are fully airgapped.

blabitty• 6 years ago

https://threatpost.com/air-gap-attack-turns-memory-wifi/1623...

plankers2• 6 years ago

That's for data exfiltration. Wouldn't be useful for sending launch and scheduling commands.

rurban3• 6 years ago

There is an automatic response system ARS in place. On both sides. Tit for tat was still a thing decades ago, until it was mathematically proven to be not a good strategy.

Movie recommendation: https://letterboxd.com/film/virus/ The better japanese version is also on youtube.

ineedasername7• 6 years ago

Nobody worry: There's a security company named SolarWinds that has a lot of experience when it comes to getting hacked, and they've already got contracts with the Federal government. Working together, I'm sure the Feds & SolarWinds can leverage those existing relationships to help get to the bottom of this situation and make sure it never happens again.

sigmaprimus2• 6 years ago

Does this mean the nuclear systems are less secure than the voting machines?

sigmaprimus2• 6 years ago

Wow, I must have touched a nerve with my question. Didn't mean to Red Pill anyone, just critical thinking. SoZ

jtdev4• 6 years ago

It seems that the U.S. approach to “cyber” defense is a complete shit show... I can’t imagine the level of incompetence and bureaucracy that led to this Solarwinds oversight - this is amateur hour stuff.

forgingahead• 6 years ago

"Most secure <whatever> in history!"

ntsplnkv23• 6 years ago

This is the result of 4 years of neglect in the oval office. This is a disastrous breach - but not a surprise under our current leadership.

IndPhysiker3• 6 years ago

Considering the OPM hack under the predecessor provided information on every person with a security clearance, I don't think it is quite fair to blame one as this sadly seems to be par for the course. I'm sure the incoming octogenarian will understand the series of tubes better...

mhh__7• 6 years ago

When you have the President firing people (Director of DHS Cybersecurity ring any bells?) for not playing his insane games, does the apple fall far from the tree?

If you think the president needs to actually "understand" anything subtle like (even physical) security, you are being deliberately obtuse or naive.

ntsplnkv23• 6 years ago

Good to know the buck doesn't stop at the presidency anymore. Guess it's just a free for all.

mhh__7• 6 years ago

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/17/chris-krebs-...

Sycophancy and dishonesty spread pretty quickly - two things you don't want in anything important.

ntsplnkv23• 6 years ago

Trump fired Christopher Krebs, who served as the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (Cisa), in a tweet on Tuesday, saying Krebs “has been terminated” and that his recent statement defending the security of the election was “highly inaccurate”.

Absolutely damning. Sadly even on HN some cybersecurity experts that will trash companies for breaches will turn a blind eye to this because of their politics.

naikrovek2• 6 years ago

Why is all of this important stuff just hanging off the internet like it's a public webserver in a data center?

AnimalMuppet2• 6 years ago

So that they can get software updates.

nitrogen• 6 years ago

It's kind of a lovely paradox -- connect to get software updates, but if you didn't connect you wouldn't need updates.

naikrovek2• 6 years ago

Non-public networks are a thing... And there are other patch delivery mechanisms...

This stuff was solved BEFORE the Internet was in widespread use.

emptyparadise• 6 years ago

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Can I prevent thermonuclear war? We guarantee that you can recover all your nukes safely and easily. But you don't have enough time. If you do not pay within 7 days, you will not be able to recover from nuclear winter forever.

How do I pay? Payment is accepted only Bitcoin. Click for more information.

SCLeo• 6 years ago

"There we go again"

*opens AES 256 decryption toolkit

YarickR2• 6 years ago

I wonder why does it look so simple, almost like an old style soldering iron.

ronsor• 6 years ago

I should've never opened that Nuclear_Update.pdf.exe attachment!

rriepe• 6 years ago

"Good thing Bitcoin is just one of our many projects."

anonymouse008• 6 years ago

This would be a pretty wild explanation for the run on BTC recently

maerF0x05• 6 years ago

what would be driving BTC up ?

selimthegrim• 6 years ago

For a second I thought this was channeling Clippy. I'll bet MS didn't see that one coming as a result of their being hacked.

dvduval• 6 years ago

I have to wonder how many corporations have been hacked but we will never know, because they are worried about the value of their stock. This could actually be a much greater threat to hobbling our infrastructure or blackmailing wealthy people to do their bidding.

unclekev2• 6 years ago

I worked for a company that had all their Customer data stolen and then sold on a darknet market place.

They completely swept it under the rug, told the infosec guys that if they talked about the incident with anyone they would have their employment terminated and that it was to never be discussed because they were worried about their share price.

We also have laws here in Australia that says if this happens to a business it mandatory to disclose the breach to your customers.

you must notify affected individuals and us when a data breach involving personal information is likely to result in serious harm.

A employee anonymously reported the breach to the government agency that handles this, who in turn contacted the business with a "Please explain. Right now."

The next day after they were contacted they fired every single IT department staff member. Helpdesk, Infosec, Networks... All fired, because they couldn't figure out who reported it.

Nothing ever happened to the business as they somehow convinced the government that the data that was stolen was "made up junk data used for testing" despite it being obviously clear that it was current customer info.

This crap happens all the time and businesses are continued to be allowed to get away with hiding breaches from people.

All it does is help the share price and disadvantage the customers.

soupfordummies• 6 years ago

Why not name this company?

slaymaker19072• 6 years ago

How did that mass firing not trigger the whistleblower laws?

sofixa2• 6 years ago

That's why GDPR includes personal liability for DPOs(Data Protection Officers) and chief executives, and requires the company have a DPO with no conflict of interest ( e.g. working under the CEO with bonuses based on stock price).

imtringued• 6 years ago

Open source software has "more" vulnerabilities because more of them get reported. With proprietary software black hats are gathering exploits in a weapons silo ready to be sold on the black market.

For some reason businesses prefer to cover up their vulnerabilities instead of fixing them. When you report a vulnerability as a white hat there is a big risk that the company will use you as a scapegoat and sue you. For a business it is much easier to claim that they "caught a hacker" rather than admit their weakness in public.

Hackerone is basically a "vulnerability blackhole as a service" because researchers are dependent on bounties for their income. Disclosing an ignored vulnerability publicly weeks or months after the hackerone report can lead to getting banned on hackerone and thereby ruin your ability to collect bounties.

wahern• 6 years ago

Presumably all medium and large corporations have been hacked. I don't think I've ever worked at an organization that hasn't been hacked. And all but one were hacked multiple times, though I'm sure that's because I just wasn't privy to the other incidents (the company may not have been, either). For criminal organizations it's just a numbers game--penetrate as many organizations as you can and then look for monetization opportunities. For many nation-states the calculus probably looks much the same, and in any event the techniques are similar.

bennettfeely• 6 years ago

The good news is that US nuclear weapon silos are stuck with 1970s technology.

https://slate.com/technology/2014/04/huge-floppy-disks-and-o...

toomuchtodo• 6 years ago

Reliable, boring old tech to the rescue.

pengaru• 6 years ago

Reliable, boring old tech to the rescue.

Reliable is not a word that comes to mind when recalling floppy disks of my youth.

temp0826• 6 years ago

Worked for Galactica

sushshshsh2• 6 years ago

Which is probably the reason they were not compromised.

aschla• 6 years ago

This is no longer the case, they’ve since upgraded: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/24/us/nuclear-weapons-floppy...

ricksharp• 6 years ago

Everyone calm down:

It was just a kid trying to hack into a video game company. He accidentally started a war simulation. The US had recently turned over control of its entire nuclear arsenal to an AI because humans resisted launching weapons that would kill millions.

Anyway, the kid accidentally started a war simulation and now the AI wants to nuke everyone. Don’t worry though, as soon as the AI plays itself in tic-tac-toe, it will realize that peace is the only way.

If you aren’t old enough to understand this, you need to catch up on your 80s nerd movies. :)

metiscus2• 6 years ago

How about a nice game of chess?

rurban3• 6 years ago

You mean either launch password 1111 or 1234.

seventytwo• 6 years ago

What is it going to take for the US to do something about the threat from Russia?

blhack• 6 years ago

From the actual article:

The U.S. government has not blamed any particular actor for the hacks yet, but cybersecurity experts have said the activity bears the hallmarks of Russia’s intelligence services.

netsharc2• 6 years ago

"The hack was so sophisticated, there must be the evil scary country behind it!"

"Their password was solarwinds123 and it was on their GitHub."

onetimemanytime• 6 years ago

US has probably done worse to them. Tried at least so this is fair game

lwansbrough• 6 years ago

Not sure! Trump assured the American people that "I have a son. He's 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it's unbelievable."

Can't imagine why the US government hasn't formed a strategic response under Trump. His foreign policy has been so good over the past 4 years.

tehjoker• 6 years ago

Nothing hopefully. Russia is a nuclear armed power and dicking around in cyberspace doesn't kill anyone. The US gave billions to get Yeltsin elected which far surpasses by orders of magnitude anything the US has alleged so far.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/06/26/russian-el...

arminiusreturns• 6 years ago

Israel is laughing at this kind of installed rhetoric.

morsch• 6 years ago

What it is going to take for the US to build secure IT systems?

GartzenDeHaes• 6 years ago

Clickbait nonsense.

swalsh• 6 years ago

Responding to this might be Bidens first major international crisis. Would not want that job.

Trasmatta3• 6 years ago

As if dealing with COVID and growing domestic extremism weren't enough

throwaway201103• 6 years ago

COVID is solved. We have two effective vaccines now approved. It's just a matter of time to get them distributed at this point.

29athrowaway2• 6 years ago

When you reward loyalty over competence, shit like this is just a matter of time.

29athrowaway2• 6 years ago

Also, this: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

2Gkashmiri• 6 years ago

So USA can blatantly infiltrate Iran with stuxnet but God forbid anyone try the same back to them. Oh no

joana035• 6 years ago

Let's update Doomsday clock!

yangff• 6 years ago

So, in 2033 somebody will plant A-BOMB from Militech in Arasaka Tower and kill 500000 is not just a story?

maerF0x05• 6 years ago

No worries, too many bugs will make it DoA

vuciv12• 6 years ago

jeez this is terrifying. can someone just give me peace of mind that I'm not going to be nuked

Trasmatta3• 6 years ago

This wasn't an effort to start a nuclear war, MAD is still a deterrent. This was a major espionage operation, which is bad, but it's not the start of nukes being dropped.

vuciv12• 6 years ago

Thank you, seriously.

3131s• 6 years ago

Definitely aliens.

CapriciousCptl• 6 years ago

Given the scope of the attack I think it’s reasonable to assume all high value targets were compromised in someway. It’s more a matter of what specifically was compromised, what data was exfiltrated, how much of the attack was offline, are Thunder going to start breaking a as la stuxnet etc.

pyronik19• 6 years ago

But the voting machines, they were fine. Biden obviously won.

glasss• 6 years ago

With how widespread this event has been, I would wager that those scam emails saying they have "recorded you relieving yourself, and you must send X bitcoin or we'll expose you" must be true for at least one person at these agencies / companies.

maerF0x05• 6 years ago

Stux to be them.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

jaequery• 6 years ago

Why the hell do they even have these top secret data over the network? They should cold store anything sensitive.

slaymaker19072• 6 years ago

It's difficult and expensive to store this data without access to any network at all. Anything sent via email would still have to be sent via some other method if you didn't have email.

coolgod• 6 years ago

How come this community of self-proclaimed hackers and independent thinkers are so quick to believe whatever "cyber-attack" related news that gets published?

_hyn32• 6 years ago

Because conspiracies have a nasty habit of being true.

ehsankia• 6 years ago

What would you assume the intention is here to lie? Are they trying to make themselves intentionally look bad to start a war with Russia? Put more sanctions on them? I don't really see the incentive here.

mechnesium• 6 years ago

Classified networks are typically air gapped.[1] Doubtful that hackers obtained anything useful.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking)

sterlind2• 6 years ago

Wouldn't be so sure. Data is eventually copied out of the airgapped side, e.g. NSA exploits are developed in the airgap and copied to an attack staging server on the Internet. And there's one-way connectivity into the airgaps via data diodes. So it's possible that a sufficiently advanced malware got through the data diode, infected the airgap side and hitched a ride out over sneakernet.

noirchen• 6 years ago

Yes evidence, more evidence, just like the good ol' time that US had evidence from Nayirah, and Powell wielded a tube of wash powder in UN claiming that was WMD.

I do believe that President Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, because with so many evidences, his precedents, including our be-loving Obama, would have bombed the hell out of our designated enemy.

Nuclear weapons agency breached amid massive cyber onslaught

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