[HN Gopher] Department of Justice Statement on SolarWinds Update
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       Department of Justice Statement on SolarWinds Update
        
       Author : afrcnc
       Score  : 77 points
       Date   : 2021-07-31 12:15 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.justice.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.justice.gov)
        
       | 4t3gar wrote:
       | Son, you need some covid in this discussion - hacker news rules.
       | 
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       | Trias11 wrote:
       | Stop hiring offshore middlemen to develop crappy code.
        
         | Andrex wrote:
         | Private equity firms are a developing scourge.
        
       | infogulch wrote:
       | > The Department is responding to this incident as if the
       | Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group responsible for the
       | SolarWinds breach had access to all email communications and
       | attachments found within the compromised O365 accounts. The APT
       | is believed to have access to compromised accounts from
       | approximately May 7 to December 27, 2020. The compromised data
       | included all sent, received, and stored emails and attachments
       | found within those accounts during that time.
        
         | legrande wrote:
         | > The Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group
         | 
         | Never liked the term APT. It just makes the 'blame game' easier
         | to commit, instead of focusing on the more important task of
         | securing your country's infra. Now the US just screams: 'China
         | up to no good again'. 'Oh those damn Russians and their cyber-
         | attacks'. No. Fix. Your. Infra.
        
           | dillondoyle wrote:
           | I don't think anyone thinks we shouldn't be doing (a lot)
           | more to fix our infra.
           | 
           | But if we do, is it even possible to fix enough to stop
           | dedicate states as big as CCP or Russia?
           | 
           | I think we need more consequences to deter this type of
           | behavior, it's a new type of attack.
           | 
           | And yes I'm sure the US is guilty too but we don't have the
           | same type of state owned/sponsored corporations that we hand
           | over hacked materials to copy nor do we support crypto-
           | hacking and hostage taking.
        
             | tialaramex wrote:
             | > is it even possible to fix enough to stop dedicate states
             | as big as CCP or Russia?
             | 
             | In effect yes, because this is an arbitrarily asymmetric
             | environment. You can make them spend say $1Bn for every $1
             | you spend, if you actually put the work in. And they can't
             | afford that.
             | 
             | The US President is just a man, the Russians could, in
             | principle, shoot him in the head. But the US spends a lot
             | of money to make that really hard, and so it isn't worth it
             | and only random American nutjobs try. Most countries don't
             | do that, it's certainly interesting how relatively few of
             | their political leaders get shot in the head...
             | 
             | But that's the wrong mindset to have in this space, and
             | it's how you get this outcome. The US focuses resources on
             | protecting a few high value assets and so your opponent
             | just seizes whatever low value assets they want and
             | leverages those to achieve their goals. The right strategy
             | is to jack up the baseline. That is, rather than spend more
             | money protecting those you perceive as biggest targets,
             | spend that money protecting everybody, including ordinary
             | folks so that these broad attacks are too expensive to
             | pursue.
             | 
             | Suppose you're an adversary today, somebody in your team
             | figures out a way to target maybe 80% of California
             | Department of Food & Agriculture employees for $1 each. You
             | won't get the most senior people, or those most on the ball
             | about security, but hey, 80% of all employees for $1 each
             | is a bargain so of course you take that.
             | 
             | Now suppose the price goes up steeply due to a better
             | approach to this problem from the US government, and they
             | cost $1000 each. That _sucks_. Instead of just saying  "Do
             | it" on your own authority you need to go talk to management
             | about budget. Nobody wants to authorise $2M for this
             | speculative work that might not go anywhere. They authorise
             | you to spend $100 000 identifying the best targets and
             | attacking those instead. A month later you've identified
             | twenty good targets at the CDFA and successfully breached
             | twelve accounts instead of hundreds. This _sucks_.
             | 
             | Imagine if instead of $1000 it was $1M. Or $1Bn. At some
             | point it gets escalated so that an aide is explaining to
             | Putin that it's a choice whether to spend money on fixing
             | the Kuznetsov or breaking into the accounts of some more US
             | civil servants moaning about the coffee machine in their
             | office on the hope that it helps somehow down the line.
             | This is not a hard choice.
             | 
             | > I'm sure the US is guilty too but we don't have the same
             | type of state owned/sponsored corporations that we hand
             | over hacked materials to copy
             | 
             | This is startlingly naive. Of course the NSA can and goes
             | obtain commercially sensitive information for US
             | corporations like Boeing. Maybe the US counts as stupider
             | for not insisting on a cut of the proceeds, who can say.
        
       | davisr wrote:
       | How many infinite free passes are tech companies going to get?
       | Either stop using them altogether, or start passing some
       | legislation mandating safety standards. Anyone who purveys these
       | faulty products has no conscience or shame.
        
         | rantwasp wrote:
         | it's not about conscience or shame. it's about cost reduction
         | and lack of incentives.
         | 
         | If I do this crappy thing and there is no punishment associated
         | with it AND I save 10% I am going to do it. It's my obligation
         | to the shareholders.
         | 
         | If I do this crappy thing and if I get caught it's a business
         | ending event it's my obligation to the shareholders not to do
         | it.
        
       | TedDoesntTalk wrote:
       | There is not much substance to this statement except a lost of
       | affected branches. What's the point?
        
         | throwawayboise wrote:
         | It was on a checklist. Statement issued, check marked, day's
         | work done.
        
           | mingus88 wrote:
           | What are you guys expecting? A complete dissection of the
           | government's network topology, and detailed inventory of past
           | and future mitigations?
           | 
           | These are classified gov systems. We are lucky to get an
           | acknowledgment that something even happened.
        
         | Spooky23 wrote:
         | > While other districts were impacted to a lesser degree, the
         | APT group gained access to the O365 email accounts of at least
         | 80 percent of employees working in the U.S. Attorneys' offices
         | located in the Eastern, Northern, Southern, and Western
         | Districts of New York.
         | 
         | Think about what is unique about these districts. What was
         | going on between May and December that an "actor" or a
         | downstream information consumer might want to know about?
        
           | spfzero wrote:
           | It still works as a random fishing expedition as well though.
           | There were certainly lots of legal strategy messages that
           | would be very valuable to the subjects of investigations or
           | ongoing cases. Some of those subjects may be initially
           | ignorant they were even on the radar yet. Some of those would
           | be very wealthy and willing to pay for the information.
        
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       (page generated 2021-07-31 23:01 UTC)