Dailydave mailing list archives
Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned"
From: Andrew Simmons <asimmons () messagelabs com>
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 19:09:39 +0100
Hi, Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:
Sure, most of the gov and mil internet facing networks are a lot more lax than they should be, but the classified stuff (even the stuff classified at a mere Confidential level) is not there. Not. Look up things like siprnet.Coffee. Need more coffee...
The Word 0day smells exactly like the Titan Rain attacks (Wikipedia has a good article for background.) (Full disclosure/disclaimer - my employer has had some involvement with this area. I, personally, haven't - all I know is what's in the public domain :)
One interesting aspect of these attacks (there are several :) is that they're after relatively soft, industrial targets.
In the cold war, the serious black hats were presumably after military, classified stuff - heavily protected even now, as you say, kept to SIPRnet and other classified, airgapped systems. Human attacks (spies) are really the best way to get access to such data - and such attacks are very very slow, risky, and high cost. How much easier it is to attack soft targets - typical commercial organisations with Windows desktops and internet access...
Can't help wondering what would have happened if Khrushchev had ordered the KGB to switch to stealing blueprints for refrigerators and cars, instead of spacecraft and nuclear weapons...
cheers \a -- Andrew Simmons // MessageLabs Security Team Technical Security Consultant MessageLabs: Be certain ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________
Current thread:
- We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned" Dave Aitel (May 24)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned" Joanna Rutkowska (May 24)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned" Nicolas RUFF (May 24)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned" Joanna Rutkowska (May 24)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned" val smith (May 24)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned" Nicolas RUFF (May 25)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned" mark (May 25)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned" Nicolas RUFF (May 24)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned" Joanna Rutkowska (May 24)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned" Martin Johns (May 24)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned" Etaoin Shrdlu (May 24)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a "lessons learned" Andrew Simmons (May 24)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a"lessons learned" Halvar Flake (May 24)
- Re: We got owned by the Chinese and didn't even get a"lessons learned" Etaoin Shrdlu (May 24)
- air gap vs. covert channels (was: We got owned by the Chinese...) Joanna Rutkowska (May 24)