There are many agencies that have some degree of charter for computer security – but “defense” has been a bit of a hot potato. Meanwhile, the NSA (and now we know CIA, and probably every other Three Letter Agency) used to go to security conferences like DEFCON and advertise that they were hiring hackers. Of course they were.
Today the news is all a’flutter about the massive malware/extortion attack on hospitals all over the place. The sky is falling!
NSA chief says they watched the Russians hack the French Elections.
Apparently we’re going to have to have regular discussions about email security, until politicians get their heads out of the sand and realize that they are targets and regular victims of mid-skill-level attack, and they need to level up their game if they don’t want to periodically look stupid.
Email security is not hard. I’d say “it just takes a little attention to detail…” but it doesn’t even take that much. I can only conclude that politicians are just blockheads about information technology and politics and it just shows how eminently qualified they are to lead high-tech civilizations. [stderr]
Russia Times had a now-famous “meet and greet” conference like the Milken conference. [stderr] And there are some fun pictures of the attendees…
The origin of the expression “walking back the cat” is lost in the early cold war, but it refers to the process of decompiling and recompiling intelligence after a breach, usually caused by a mole.
…. that would come from Washington, if the North Koreans were launching cyberattacks against US nuclear assets, and strategic missile development programs.
Code Obfuscation’s really neat stuff. Or, it can be.
Between Wikileaks, the Shadow Brokers, the FBI’s use of confidential informants like Sabu [stderr] we learn the breadth and depth of the US Government’s hypocrisy about “cyberwar” and espionage.
I recently made a comment about The Best And The Brightest and went to amazon to get a link to the book.