Russia reports 'unprecedented' hacking campaign aimed at government agencies | Hacker News Reader

Russia reports 'unprecedented' hacking campaign aimed at government agencies

reuters.com

72 pointsgeorgecmu57 comments

So, while watching the excellent "Great War" video series a few years back about World War 1, it repeatedly came up that the generals were caught off guard by how technology had changed war. In particular, the advantage had swung to the defense, and for the first time no matter how good the morale and courage of your charging troops, they could all get mowed down before they reached the enemy. It took a while before they realized that it was a new game.

I suspect we are in a similar time, albeit in a mirror image way; the advantage has dramatically swung to the offense. You can attack your opponent's infrastructure, without even showing your face. We could end up in a cyber war aimed at each other's critical infrastructure (which has a real potential to kill people), without ever really deciding we wanted to go to war. The ability to even know who your opponent is, has never been as big a problem before. I suspect we will have some WW1-style misunderstandings at the top, in several countries.

>We could end up in a cyber war aimed at each other's critical infrastructure (which has a real potential to kill people), without ever really deciding we wanted to go to war.

We're already there. Although most of it happens by way of modern day privateering. The Colonial pipeline hack was only possible because of the ability of de facto state sponsored groups like Darkside to exist. As long as there is an implicit guarantee of no consequences for attacking the west, they will continue to escalate.

"Privateering" is an excellent analogy (if it's even different enough to be considered an analogy, and not just more or less exactly the same thing).

Are you sure it was “Darkside”? If so, based on what evidence?

Based on the evidence that they publicly claimed responsibility.

Excuse me, but it hasn't even been an hour since the link was posted and there's already glaring US-centrism in the comments: "get what you deserve", "mass disinformation campaigns".

Where have you guys been living? What news have you been watching? You realise that the same actions are done by the US and, to a lesser extent and limited by their capabilities, their allies.

US developed an unprecedented malware capable of sabotaging airgapped nuclear facilities. And clearly US disinformation campaigns can't be faulted too since you people seem to think that Russia is really a threat at this point to the US.

It always amazes me when my fellow Americans are shocked that after decades of the CIA and NSA using a trick on other countries they decide to fight back using the same dirty tactics.

There are only two comments, and I don’t think your interpretation is a charitable one.

Anyway, given the numerous recent hacks, it does seem like we could easily be entering into an escalation. I really hope not, as that won’t end well for anyone.

If this encourages everyone to take cyber security seriously then that would be a good end. Regardless of who is behind these specific attacks, non-stop attacks against everyone are the new reality. We're going to have to learn to live with that.

You can gloat over Russian assets getting hacked without being pro-US. Your analysis here is the result of your own dichotomic view of the world.

There is an important distinction between attacking civilian-critical services like healthcare systems and pipelines, and attacking a single nuclear WEAPONS manufacturing plant in Iran.

Why does the US get to make the call who can have nuclear weapons and who can't when the US is the only one whom ever dropped one on civilians [1]?

"Trust us we are the good guys" doesn't cut it for the US anymore when international deals get broken when a new administration comes in. [2]

We should be going towards a global disarmament which everyone could agree on.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_withdrawal_from_...

The US isn't making the call in this case. Iran signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and is thus prohibited from having nuclear weapons.

https://www.un.org/disarmament/wmd/nuclear/npt/

> Why does the US get to make the call who can have nuclear weapons and who can't when the US is the only one whom ever dropped one on civilians?

Well, I for one am not about to cross the people who use nukes on civilians.

Proliferation prevention is applied fairly to all non-nuclear states. However, especially reckless ones get the stick, and those actions are usually multilateral. For example, the “Iran Deal”.

What does this have to do with nuclear weapons?

Does Iran have a good track record for human rights protection? No it is a religious dictatorship that has vowed many times to wipe a nearby country of people different than them off the map.

Again the US may be a democracy but has repeatedly threatened other nations. [1] The US also is not shy in admitting it has a kill list [2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5UhQ-gqVkg

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposition_Matrix

You mean like how the US president threatened "fire and fury like the world has never seen" against a country of people different than them?

I am deeply ashamed by some of the things that that President said, especially with regards to internationally policy. Can't we just agree that he no longer speaks for the US, and as such, neither do his Twitter rants?

Also we voted him out via democracy, the system worked. Iran's people have no such luxury.

The stories my Persian friends' parents tell of life before and after 1979 are heartbreaking.

Sure, as long as we also agree that he (or someone in the same ballpark) will not get re-elected in 4 years time.

He won't. The political party that elected him is split now. Half of them want him back, but half want to move on, so he is gonna just lose again.

Half of them believe he's actually still President and he'll be using a secret army to re-install himself when the time is right.

What about the half of Democrats that realize Biden deliberately stubbed his own toe on critical campaign promises to help working poor Americans? Will they fall in line one more time as the progressive candidate (ala Bernie Sanders 2016 and 2020) gets railroaded by the Democratic party machine one more time?

Was the US overthrowing Iran’s democratically-elected prime minister in 1953 about human rights then? He was introducing progressive reforms in Iran.

> progressive reforms

You mean nationalize other peoples property then try to starve capitalism of resources. As a liberal I always find it funny when leftists have this magical ability to just forget WHY the States had the containment policy. So yea it was about the human right of private property.

Oh ok so how was the human right of private property respected when the US annexed Hawaii?

Um what system of government did they have before? I guess we have beef against most forms of Monarchies. And before you mention it was a constitutional monarchy that was done by the Bayonet Constitution.... read that history that was basically us. not as bad as the constitution of 1894 tho... that was rather direct.

Ok got it. So "respecting human rights" means the US should get to decide the form of government and economy of everyone else in the world (which through total happenstance always ends up benefiting the US). At least you admit it. Now don't complain when the consequences of that stance fully manifest over the next couple of decades.

Every non-democracy or republic is oppressing its people in some way shape or form. So yea that is respecting human rights.

A Chase survey from January of this year found that 40% of Americans don’t have enough cash on hand to cover a $400 emergency. The NHIS estimated that from 2017-2019 anywhere from 8,500 to 25,000 non-elderly adults died in the US from lack of healthcare coverage. In a 2019 Gallup poll, 25% of US adults said they or a family member had delayed treatment for a serious medical condition during the past year because of financial concerns. As of 2018 there were roughly 550,000 homeless people in the US on any given night. The US has around 25% of the world’s prison population with 698 people incarcerated per 100,000.

But we have freedom and human rights!

> A Chase survey from January of this year found that 40% of Americans don’t have enough cash on hand to cover a $400 emergency.

Did you know that has nothing to do with how much money you make? if you don't save any money you won't have money for unexpected expenses.

> As of 2018 there were roughly 550,000 homeless people in the US on any given night

Heres some other countries homeless populations Germany: 650,000 China: 2,579,000 Canada: 129,127 (36 per 10k) New Zealand: 41,207 (94 per 10k). The US is 17 per 10k just so you know.

Let's say your number for China is accurate (it's not). Why aren't all these free human rights respecting places able to do better on the rate of homelessness than an oppressive authoritarian regime?

Let's assume you're right that everyone is just spending all their money irresponsibly. Why isn't our system of free speech and open access to information able to educate people better?

>a single nuclear WEAPONS manufacturing plant in Iran

If "mass disinformation campaigns" were very successful, then:

1."WEAPONS manufacturing plant" could be actually a "civilian-critical nuclear power plant related services"

2.You would never find statement 1 is unprovable. In stead you would insist that statement 1 must be false as the consequence of disinformation.

It seems that hacking of any "civilian-critical" services , whether in US or Russia, is less critical than the hacking of people's mind (especially of smart developers/hackers) who would support and thus actively involve in hacking "evil" entities, along with other activities causing conflicts.

I believe HNers minds are less likely to be hacked then those of other communities. (Technology topics are almost never be hacked. I'm talking about politics discussion which is more fascinating to watch how hacked HNer's minds interacting with each other.)

My belief could be wrong because "Mind's I" could be hacked and it's unprovable.

I'm assuming you've got some citations to daily US government sponsored crypto locker campaigns holding Russian and Chinese government and corporate entities hostage?

Attempts at preventing another nuclear armed country in the world is good for everyone except that country, whether the reasons behind it were noble or not.

Not all countries are equal and should be treated as equivalent.

is there any proof the US is behind this?

> since you people seem to think that Russia is really a threat at this point

There are no threats in this world only economic opportunities.

> You realise that the same actions are done by the US and, to a lesser extent and limited by their capabilities, their allies.

Yes and?

Are we supposed to feel sorry for Russia? That this is somehow a sports game where who wins don't matter in the end?

Still yesterday it was revealed that Russia wanted to hire influencers to sow disinformation about vaccines. That's pretty much the lowest you can get without actually shooting people. (Without forgetting the attack on the Irish and New-Zealand health services - which while I don't think are gov. sponsored they're at least complicit)

So, sorry if I don't buy the "both-sides" blah blah blah.

"But the west does that to further their interests" those who don't further their interests are lame ducks (I'm sure Russia would love more than those). Yes, there are ethical considerations and I could go on and on about those.

Tit-for-tat is needed unless you believe that bullies let you go if you ignore them

Well what was hacked? This report could hardly be more vague.

According to an auto-translation of the report[1], it was aimed at "federal executive authorities":

[1] https://rt-solar.ru/analytics/reports/2203/

Thanks for the link! btw, the PDF report has been cached by Google so its HTML conversion is Google-translatable itself: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp...

The word "unprecedented" is doing some heavy lifting in this article.

Sounds fun, I hope it’s successful.

Sounds more like setting up the stage for deniability / future finger pointing / told-you-so etc.

What a fluff piece

Live by the sword...

"I can't believe anyone would target us" says nation that is notorious for state-sponsored hacks and mass disinformation campaigns that are so large and widespread that they actually have a bureaucracy tasked with managing all of the various operations in motion at any one time.

Are you talking about the US, Russia, China, or some other major country?

Yes. All three. Whining is fine, but a surprised pikachu face from either Russia or China when someone decides to turn the tables is more than I think anyone can put up with at this point.

Seriously. Everyone spies on everyone else and everyone feigns surprise when their spying is uncovered. That's how the game is played and it's always been that way.

What bureaucracy is that?

In the US I’m assuming the CIA? Not sure what group manages this in Russia. To be fair, gp could be applied to many countries also including China, Russia, the US and I assume the UK.

in russia, i believe it's GRU

IRA and a lot of the Russian APT groups have quite a bureaucratic system running the show once you actually start to do a bit of digging. Same for most western agencies as well, but that should be no surprise. I am not quite sure about the management of the various APT groups out of China; there is a bit of a reporting disconnect about the layer between the Ministry of State Security and the individual groups, but given how other groups/companies that are actually run by the PLA operate I am assuming a sizeable bureaucratic layer as well.

Thats a bit anti-american but okay

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