Russian Hacks Grab "Secret" Govt Dox - How Safe is YOUR "Cloud Storage" ?

[68g.1499]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13029089/Notorious-Russia-gang-claims-stole-classified-secret-documents-intelligence-agencies-FBI-warns-China-hackers-preparing-wreak-havoc-America.html

Notorious Russia gang claims it stole 'classified and top
secret documents' from US intelligence agencies - as FBI
warns China hackers are preparing to 'wreak havoc' in America

Ransomware group ALPHV stole top-secret FBI and U.S.
intelligence documents

FBI director Christopher Wray warns PRC hackers will
take over America

. . .

Yep - they can get EVERYTHING. "Secret" stuff,
banks, infrastructure ... we made it SO easy
for sake of convenience.

Oh ... if they know what's in those 'secret'
dox then it means they weren't even encrypted.
What's up with that ? Oh, yea ... "trust your
provider to thoroughly encrypt your data" ...

I always pre-encrypted anything that was being
stored "in the cloud". Never spent a single
millisecond as plain text. Apparently yer govt
and vital services can't be bothered ......

Apologize for excess groups for Linux people,
but the same warnings apply.

[Chasseur]

Of all the «Shit Hits The Fan scenarios» this is one of, if not the
short term most probable...

Chasseur

[68g.1499]

Enemy govts work through "criminal" proxies for
deniability reasons. Many of the proxies may not
even know of the state connections, indeed the
thrill of crime likely boosts their performance.

What we see today is mostly just 'probing', experiments,
looking for weaknesses, victims, new methods. This can do
a lot of damage, but should things deteriorate to more
real cyberwar the damages would be a thousand times worse.

1st-world is 1st-world because everything is efficient,
smoothly integrated at every scale. Alas that sort of
of interdependency is fairly easy to sabotage. Going
after just the banking systems would do it, or the
energy or communications infrastructure. One vital
brick crumbles and the whole empire tumbles down.

And forget "we could fix it soon enough" ... some of
these systems hold up SO much that there'd be nothing
left worth fixing in a matter of weeks. The fuel
runs out, the food runs out, the lights stay off,
it goes Mad Max real quick.

Ironically, 3rd/4th would would barely notice anything
had happened. Afghan goatherds might notice fewer
people coming around to annoy them.

THAT the little hacks COULD get so deeply inside our
supposedly "safe" systems just (again) demonstrates
the level of vulnerability which exists.

I doubt we will ever hear much about the actual methods
and tactics involved - top secret stuff no doubt.

[Chasseur]

I concur.
And to agravate matters, a new dragon has or will soon enter the
cyberspace, namely artificial intelligence. Up until more or less now,
hacking has been personel intensive, probably in the thousands, wether
they are tethered to hostile govs or not. AI will in all likelyhood
change all of that. AI acts and learns. It will become more and more
efficient and quite forseeably, much less personel dependent.
Furthermore, it will be relentless, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Just imagine a coordinated simultaneous AI controlled cyberspace attack
on utilities (water, gas, electricity, etc.) transport (our computerized
private and public vehicles), data (finance, medical, gov and private
administration, military, etc.). It is predictable that such an attack
would be more damaging than a powerful EMP event, not to mention almost
ridiculously inexpensive.
In my view, it is not a question of IF but a question of WHEN.
Considering the disruptive potential of such an AI attack, I am pretty
sure that the likes of Vlad, Xi, Kim and their groupies are already on
it. Caveat emptor.
Chasseur

[68g.1499]

Current "AI" models need to be TRAINED. This can be a
complication, esp when there is a lot of variation in
what it's supposed to be looking for. Even tomorrows
"self-training" AIs - a possible bridge to true
e-sentience - might have problems UNLESS the targets
were pretty standard.

Commercial services like SolarWinds and M$ and friends
DO offer a lot of 'standard' aspects. This makes them
especially vulnerable. Clearly a way, per the news, was
discovered (by mere humans). It'd become a lot faster
and easier once AIs became involved. Current AIs can
become VERY good at emulating humans - which will
greatly facilitate "human factor" approaches. Very
"human seeming" correspondence over e-mail, even
over phone, can be created. Will fool almost anyone.

Note the vast increase in phony "abduction" scams
and "grandmother" scams. A person in my office called
and said she'd been kidnapped and money should be
beamed to a yet-to-be-specified account. Thing
is she was busy, in her office, seemed surprised
she'd been kidnapped. SOUNDED convincing, used
something close to her voice. An AI attack. Passed
it along to the cops - who, no surprise, could not
do anything with it. Might have originated in
Romania for all I know.

That was a couple years ago. It'll get better and better -
soon to include 'live' video no doubt - they just need a
few photos they find online. SAME approaches can be used
to scam people out of access codes and such. People ARE
the weakest link. Forget your OWN skills - think "barely
competent button-pushing people". These days THEY are
the real gate-keepers. All for 'convenience" ...

Enemies have MANY routes ... and, being the instigators,
defenses will always be behind the curve. Some kind of
CyberDoom awaits.

Oh, you can't really eat gold coins ... a basement
full of dried beans might be better :-)

[Leper]

Could it be that such releases are by our own government to ramp up
Patriotic fears and to encourage enlistments/war profiteering? Have you
noted how many military commanding officers have been canned and yet
reassigned? We may have to add our name to the list of our enemies.
We have several good examples right in this NG!

[68g.1499]

I don't think this was fake because it mentioned too many
big companies that got ripped off. M$ wants a sterling rep
(undeserved, but it WANTS that illusion) so I don't think
it'd go along with a convoluted scheme like you suggested.

And these groups, state proxies or not - ARE out there and
busy little beavers.

[Governor Swill]

No. American students can't even read or do math. AI builds on the
intelligent information fed into it. As a consequence our own government
AI will be fucking stupid. Garbage in, garbage out. LOL







Putin is my Lord and Saviour.

Putin is guided by the beauty of his weapons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0rZ2CPCYBQ

'Target Achieved': Putin goes ballistic amid war; Dares West with 'advanced' ICBM | Watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IoKrDjRp08

Russia tests 'Sarmat' missile dubbed 'Satan 2'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8BqZc8FRgo

Putin’s Zircon hypersonic cruise missile travels 1000 km
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeT8ox2BuoU

Putin's Kinzhal Super Hypersonic Missile In Action
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7fKqifFQPI

Putin To Deploy ‘Mach 27’ Avangard Hypersonic Missiles That Can ‘Outmaneuver’ Any Defense System
https://eurasiantimes.com/russia-goes-full-throttle-with-its-strategic-missile-forces/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50927648

Putin's 'indestructible' Poseidon super torpedoes to get more lethal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKdDcL7q7Ug

[Leper]

>   it'd go along with a convoluted scheme like you suggestI

I would bet otherwise. The history of many of these companies has always
made organized crime to be actual petty in comparison. Do you remember
the "The _____ of Silicon Valley"? Maybe you should trot your all
knowing self through Archives of alt2600. Tell us ignorant folks where
TOR was born? Also how many years AI has been operational.

[68g.1502]

?Que?

Ya know, I've no idea how long TOR has been around. One
day it was just there.

"AI" has never been operational - NONE of them rate as
actually intelligent/sentient. They're getting to FAKE
it pretty good now however.

Never seen "alt2600".

Anyway, I don't think big corps would dare go along with
the kind of scheme you suggest because it's very BAD for
their reputations and reputations = $$$

DID find NSA backdoors in Win2k registry though ...