Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

Helen Borg

Helen Borg's Journal
Helen Borg's Journal
August 27, 2016

New leaks prove it: the NSA is putting us all at risk to be hacked

Source: Vox

"The National Security Agency is lying to us. We know that because of data stolen from an NSA server was dumped on the internet. The agency is hoarding information about security vulnerabilities in the products you use, because it wants to use it to hack others' computers. Those vulnerabilities aren't being reported, and aren't getting fixed, making your computers and networks unsafe.

On August 13, a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers released 300 megabytes of NSA cyberweapon code on the internet. Near as we experts can tell, the NSA network itself wasn't hacked; what probably happened was that a "staging server" for NSA cyberweapons — that is, a server the NSA was making use of to mask its surveillance activities — was hacked in 2013.

The NSA inadvertently resecured itself in what was coincidentally the early weeks of the Snowden document release. The people behind the link used casual hacker lingo, and made a weird, implausible proposal involving holding a bitcoin auction for the rest of the data: "!!! Attention government sponsors of cyber warfare and those who profit from it !!!! How much you pay for enemies cyber weapons?"

Still, most people believe the hack was the work of the Russian government and the data release some sort of political message. Perhaps it was a warning that if the US government exposes the Russians as being behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee — or other high-profile data breaches — the Russians will expose NSA exploits in turn."

Read more: http://www.vox.com/2016/8/24/12615258/nsa-security-breach-hoard

August 27, 2016

The NSA Is Hoarding Vulnerabilities

"The National Security Agency is lying to us. We know that because of data stolen from an NSA server was dumped on the Internet. The agency is hoarding information about security vulnerabilities in the products you use, because it wants to use it to hack others' computers. Those vulnerabilities aren't being reported, and aren't getting fixed, making your computers and networks unsafe.

On August 13, a group calling itself the Shadow Brokers released 300 megabytes of NSA cyberweapon code on the Internet. Near as we experts can tell, the NSA network itself wasn't hacked; what probably happened was that a "staging server" for NSA cyberweapons -- that is, a server the NSA was making use of to mask its surveillance activities -- was hacked in 2013."

More at the link:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/08/the_nsa_is_hoar.html

Profile Information

Gender: Female
Member since: Thu Jun 13, 2013, 04:56 AM
Number of posts: 3,963
Latest Discussions»Helen Borg's Journal