[HN Gopher] Brian Krebs: This Administration Is Completely Compr...
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Brian Krebs: This Administration Is Completely Compromised
Author : breadwinner
Score : 83 points
Date : 2025-02-28 21:33 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (infosec.exchange)
(TXT) w3m dump (infosec.exchange)
| breadwinner wrote:
| Before flagging this post to oblivion consider the source: Brian
| Krebs [1] is highly reputable [2]. This is very newsworthy.
|
| [1] https://krebsonsecurity.com/
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Krebs
| TZubiri wrote:
| By the title, I was concerned, thought maybe musk's doge and
| the likes were leaking data.
|
| But it seems to be about Russia. It's a security researcher
| posting about politics. He may be out of his element and this
| would be equivalent to posts from any citizen.
|
| Otoh, another possibility is that his insight from the
| cybersecurity aspect might reflect on a bigger trend.
|
| I'm going with the former interpretation (out of his element)
| cyber is only one aspect of the US-Rus relations and a
| cybersecurity specialist might overweigh it. There's other
| concerns, including actual proxy wars going on. We don't know
| what the priorities are.
| breadwinner wrote:
| Here's more reporting on this if you don't like Mr. Krebs:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/28/trump-
| russia...
| TZubiri wrote:
| I like Krebs. It's just that he is an expert in cyber
| security and not national defense or military.
|
| My take from reading the more neutral guardian article is
| that the Americans don't see russia as a threat, probably
| because they have faith in their public and private cyber
| defense. And possibly also because they do similar cyber
| attacks, so they don't hold it against them.
|
| It's good to see US Rus relations improving, I don't know
| what to tell ya.
| breadwinner wrote:
| > _Americans don 't see russia as a threat_
|
| Seriously? Those Americans should remove their rose
| colored glasses. Even if you don't see Putin as a threat
| it is still important to spy on him.
| jpmoral wrote:
| > And possibly also because they do similar cyber
| attacks, so they don't hold it against them.
|
| "We spy on them so them spying on us is not a threat"
| does not make sense.
| Hizonner wrote:
| > My take from reading the more neutral guardian article
| is that the Americans don't see russia as a threat,
|
| ... in spite of the many continuing active attacks coming
| out of Russia. Credibly with state support. As part of a
| longstanding pattern.
|
| > probably because they have faith in their public and
| private cyber defense.
|
| What they're shutting down _is_ (a meaningful part of)
| "their public and private cyber defense".
|
| > And possibly also because they do similar cyber
| attacks, so they don't hold it against them.
|
| That is a shockingly stupid thing to say. "Don't hold it
| against them"? None of this is about the feels.
| TZubiri wrote:
| >What they're shutting down is (a meaningful part of)
| "their public and private cyber defense
|
| This is were you are in the wrong, the decision is on
| dropping counter-offenses, not on turning off defenses,
| whatever that means, are they disabling firewalls?
| Hizonner wrote:
| No, they're shutting down activities intended to gather
| intelligence on people who are actively attacking them,
| and/or disrupt those attacks.
|
| If you want to think military, suppose somebody's been
| shelling my assets, so I return fire and try to knock out
| their guns. Is that defense or offense? I'm destroying
| their stuff, remember. _Physically_ , there is no
| difference between their actions and mine. So should I
| just put up an earthen berm and forget about trying to
| disrupt the attack itself?
|
| There isn't some absolute line between defense and
| offense.
| n2d4 wrote:
| How is a (reputable) cybercrime journalist out of his element
| when it comes to how much cybercrime is committed by Russia?
| That sounds like it's exactly his topic of expertise.
|
| Sure, there are other things that are happening in this
| conflict that may or may not be worse, but he didn't say
| there wasn't. All he said is that he believes that the
| cybersecurity stuff is already enough to prove malice. If you
| believe there are even worse things, then you should be even
| more worried!
| legitster wrote:
| It's hard for there to be a less authoritative figure on this
| stuff than Krebs.
| TZubiri wrote:
| Authority doesn't transfer across all domains. Although this
| is roughly adjacent to his domain, it's also not his domain.
|
| Consider wikipedia's take on the subject of self published
| sources:
|
| " Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable
| when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose
| work *in the relevant field* has previously been published by
| reliable, independent publications."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-p.
| ..
| hyperhopper wrote:
| This is his domain. His domain is cyberattacks. This is
| 100% about cyberattacks. Sure some people are playing
| politics with it, but it is his domain more than the
| politicians.
|
| Of thr people mentioned here, we have one of the world's
| foremost security experts, and a fox news host making a
| decision about cyber security. There is no evidence that
| the fox news host's experience is more relevant to this
| domain.
| _rm wrote:
| No it's not, it's about cyber attacks and diplomacy. He
| has no expertise in diplomacy.
| breadwinner wrote:
| Brian further comments:
|
| We are so getting cut out of intel sharing agreements by our
| allies over this. I mean, if they have a brain. Anyone with intel
| training 101 (that isn't Israel) will conclude that the US cannot
| be a trusted intel sharing partner anymore.
|
| https://infosec.exchange/@briankrebs/114083681956432034
| tuatoru wrote:
| One example action is not enough evidence to be able to use
| "completely". More data required.
| Hizonner wrote:
| "Standing down from all planning" is one action the same way
| "launching all the nukes" is one action.
| jonahbenton wrote:
| As a non-famous infosec person I am completely freaked out.
| legitster wrote:
| It's also worth noting that Cyber Command doesn't just do the
| high level infosec/botfarm stuff. Their most useful work for
| common Americans is fighting ransomware groups and coordinated
| scammers. Many of which originate from Russia!
|
| Depending on how this order is implemented, it's not just a
| political thing, but an opening of the door to actual robbers and
| thieves.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Whether you agree with his assessment or not - it's clear that
| the president has too much power for one single person to hold.
| _Hopefully_ congress will work to change _that_, rather than
| fight this one person for four years and hope to hand all of this
| power to somebody they trust better next time.
| Timber-6539 wrote:
| Why is an infosec journo now peddling political propaganda?
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