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Security Microsoft United States

Hackers Tied To Russia Hit US Nuclear Agency, Three States (bloomberg.com) 100

The U.S. nuclear weapons agency and at least three states were hacked as part of a suspected Russian cyber attack that struck a number of federal government agencies. Microsoft Corp. was also breached, and its products were used to further attacks on others, Reuters reported. Bloomberg reports: The Energy Department and its National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains America's nuclear stockpile, were targeted as part of the larger attack, according to a person familiar with the matter. An ongoing investigation has found the hack didn't affect "mission-essential national security functions," Shaylyn Hynes, a Department of Energy spokeswoman, said in a statement. "At this point, the investigation has found that the malware has been isolated to business networks only," Hynes said. The hack of the nuclear agency was reported earlier by Politico.

In addition, two people familiar with the broader government investigation into the attack said three states were breached, though they wouldn't identify the states. A third person familiar with the probe confirmed that states were hacked but didn't provide a number. In an advisory Thursday that signaled the widening alarm over the the breach, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said the hackers posed a "grave risk" to federal, state and local governments, as well as critical infrastructure and the private sector. The agency said the attackers demonstrated "sophistication and complex tradecraft."

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Hackers Tied To Russia Hit US Nuclear Agency, Three States

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  • ... Microsoft Corp. was also breached, and its products were used to further attacks on others...

    Why are we still using this $hit???

    • Re: Micro$oft... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Cassini2 ( 956052 ) on Thursday December 17, 2020 @08:13PM (#60843436)

      Recenty, my job has drifted back to 3D CAD after a time away. I was shocked by the state of application security. SolidWorks is now cloud based and is a fusion of Social Networking, Project Management and 3D CAD. Coming off a nuclear project, it was a total shock.

      3D CAD designs are often one of the more sensitive areas of a company. How do I work in secret?

      Obviously, not with Solidworks anymore. I went and got AutoDesk Inventor. It won't run without an internet connection, and still doesn't support Linux.

      At this point, I'm looking for options. Between Microsoft and these two CAD vendors, there is very little design security, and i can't see an easy way to add it.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • well we sold our souls to the devil to get 'convenience' and allowed them to push cloud down our throats. I work at a local utility and will never let them pry away real servers with local software. Would you want your water and electricity to be directly controlled from the cloud?
      • Re: Micro$oft... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 17, 2020 @11:47PM (#60843892)

        I went and got AutoDesk Inventor. It won't run without an internet connection, and still doesn't support Linux.

        Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.

        The company for which I work has one up to date copy on Inventor, and a dozen years old 'lifetime' releases that do not require any kind of authentication apart from the license server which I hacked twenty years ago. We paid for all, we just do not want the cloud insanity that AutoDesk has been embracing in the last decade.

        The new version is used to convert the newer formats to the old standard. Everyone from the two departments that use CAD is allowed to practice with the new version, in case there is a problem that cannot be handled in the confines of company policy. I get called to do some tricky converts maybe once every few weeks.

        The money we have saved by not upgrading every year, and by not paying ongoing fees, just from the AutoDesk stuff is probably into the six digits. Add the money saved by using the old, lifetime versions of ProMechanica, ProEngineer, Magma, etc...

        More than many times the discretionary budget of my (IT) department.

    • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      'ER' because lobbyists, M$ pays them to pay politicians to buy M$ product and protect it. OHH NOES M$ got hacked due to lax security, because security cost profits and what do we do, 'er' 'er', 'um', 'um', PUTIN did it. that's it, the Russian KGB 'er' FSB did it, professional hack (how can poor little m$ possibly protect itself from the Russian, hey, wait on a minute fuckers, is that no what people pay you for, you much touted security, which apparently is not), it is all the dastardly Russians fault, nobod

  • by zkiwi34 ( 974563 ) on Thursday December 17, 2020 @08:08PM (#60843416)

    Old timers who knew how to do IT security are old... ignored... retired... dead...

    And to replace them we get a generation brought up in the ways of Gatesâ(TM) Microsoft. Security? Whatâ(TM)s that? We just need it to look like it works.

    Basically, system security has become a series of bandaids layered up more in hope than expectation that it will work. And all the while the luminaries prance around shouting that this is the most secure version ever... without understanding what the word security even means.

    • by msauve ( 701917 )
      >brought up in the ways of GatesÃ(TM) Microsoft. Security? WhatÃ(TM)s that? IDK. What are you posting with, which is inserting "smart quotes?"
    • What a complete load of bullshit, Security prior to the gates erra (i.e. prior to internet) was actually non existant, it relied on the fact you had no physical access to terminals. the few systems that had some sort of online equivalent (dialups etc) had fucking awful security.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Just look at some of the old timer comments on Slashdot. "Fix your code" they say, no concept of attack surfaces or defence in depth. They hate containers and sandboxes, can't get any "real work" done in those.

    • by jythie ( 914043 )
      This has changed how? I am old enough to have worked with a range of 'old timers', including ones all the way back to when 'security' was a new idea and how novel it was that users could not access each other's memory space. Security has always been a series of bandaids, as soon as a system goes live they start piling up... and there have been hacks long before the current generation.
  • Microsoft said it had detected a backdoored version of SolarWinds software in its network, but had uncovered no evidence it was used to compromise the company's production system or access customer data. Official response: "Like Other SolarWinds customers, we have been actively looking for indicators of this actor and can confirm that we detected malicious SolarWinds binaries in our environment, which we isolated and removed. We have not found evidence of access to production services or customer data. Our
    • Why is Microsoft using SolarWinds?

      • I'd argue they're monitoring devices which only report SNMP data, and Microsoft for years ignored SNMP in favor of their own WMI standard.

        Had Microsoft at least made SNMP a peer to WMI in Windows if not the standard, Performance Monitor would support SNMP objects and there would be less bullshit like SolarWinds in the Windows IT world.

  • is all we hear about. Something tells me the real story is elsewhere! Maybe China ;)
    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Something tells you? This is amazing! Have you told the government this so they can correctly find the perps?

    • I agree with you, you're definitely right. Why would Russia try to hack USA - it makes no sense whatsoever, it's so ridicules that it must be a lie. Not only Russia would never hack US, but US relying on MS Windows is not hackable - everybody knows that. It's such a bogus story.

  • by Anonymous Coward
    And you're closer to the truth.
  • by jmcbain ( 1233044 ) on Thursday December 17, 2020 @08:50PM (#60843548)
    State-sponsored hacking into U.S. government agencies should be thought of as an act of war. It's no different from a foreign power sending in a squad of soldiers through the front door of these agencies.
    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday December 17, 2020 @10:30PM (#60843754)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • You know how you can tell when an email is written by someone for whom your native language isn't their native language? Code signatures are like that, too.

        Forensic analysts can tell common threads that exists between work from various sources. While those could hypothetically be faked, it's hard to do that when you don't know how to do it convincingly. As an example, an American English speaker could probably simulate a UK English speaker - up to a point where local idioms were used incorrectly or not a

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      By that standard most of the world is at war with the US and UK.

    • In that case just the US has declared war on just about every country on the planet, including its allies.
  • by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Thursday December 17, 2020 @08:58PM (#60843566) Journal
    Microsoft Codebase continues to improve. Yet, it is cracked more than ever before. So, why is it that MS is spending buco bucks on Security, but things are worse then ever? Because it is NOT MS's fault.

    The reason is because so much is being offshored and citizens elsewhere have different priorities and allies. India's closet ally is NOT from the west. It is Russia.

    So, imagine if you are a coder working with Brits for 5-10 years, you know them, and you like them. But, Argentina comes along and offers you more $, to come work for them, even though it is 1/2 to 1/10 of what the Argentinian gets paid. Along comes your old British friends and they say, that they will pay you 10-30x MORE than what you are CURRENTLY making, if you will leave in a backdoor. They give you a worm that when you go in to admin their system in the middle of Argentina's night, you simply release it and it creates a nice backdoor in the OS. Easy Peasy. Of course, your British friends then come in to the back door, put in a new one, and remove the old. Why? So, it does not point back to you. Then they sit tight for 2-4 months before going back at it.
    • How about the reverse. You have a job that includes aspects of security appropriate for Intranet and DMZ and Public facing systems. You build security models that create security and detection to include prevent and detect. Then someone says... Hey.. we havent had any problems. Lets have it done by cheaper people.. so you get squeezed out and chaos ensues. Who is to blame when security is elimated for convenience, lower (perceived) cost and global access. Hrumph.
    • "Microsoft Codebase continues to improve. Yet, it is cracked more than ever before."

      How do you know? Have you seen the code?

      "So, why is it that MS is spending buco bucks on Security, but things are worse then ever? Because it is NOT MS's fault."

      The amount of money spent is orthogonal to the level of security attained, which is determined not by cost, but by other factors like talent and process.

  • ... is anything related to the US nuclear and energy department accessible from the Internet? Damn fools for connecting everything to the net.
  • As an American, it sucks that i cannot say âoebut when israel and us do it to others, is okâ.

    We have done way worse to others.

    On the other hand, the reliance on everything being on the cloud and not on prem is a serious vulnerability that will simply keep getting worse before it gets better (hope to be absolutely wrong on that one.)

    • As an American, it sucks that i cannot say âoebut

      You can say âoebut as much as you want. Actually I'm curious about the pronounciation.

  • Donald Trump is to be congratulated for not wasting time & using the power of his office to take firm, decisive action against the perps. Yes, siree. Right on top of it.
    • Donald Trump is to be congratulated for not wasting time & using the power of his office to take firm, decisive action against the perps. Yes, siree. Right on top of it.

      Don't worry about it. We're already replacing him with someone else that will do nothing too.

  • Or did you force them, Mr. Trump?

  • .... the build of a great firewall? If he did it would do the opposite and just like china's great firewall block free speech. Lets see what Biden is going to do.

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