That NBC story 100% fraudulent

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/02/that-nbc-story-100-fraudulent.html

By Robert Graham
Errata Security
February 06, 2014

Yesterday (Feb 5 2014) NBC News ran a story claiming that if you bring 
your mobile phone or laptop to the Sochi Olympics, it'll immediately be 
hacked the moment you turn it on. The story was fabricated. The technical 
details relate to going to the Olympics in cyberspace (visiting websites), 
not going to there in person and using their local WiFi.

The story shows Richard Engel "getting hacked" while in a cafe at Sochi.

  1. It is wrong in every respect.

  2. They aren't in Sochi, but in Moscow, 1007 miles away.
     The "hack" happens because of the websites they visit (Olympic themed
     websites), not their physical location. The results would've been the
     same in America.

  3. The phone didn't "get" hacked; Richard Engel initiated the download
     of a hostile Android app onto his phone.

I had expected the story to be about the situation with WiFi in Sochi, 
such as man-in-the-middle attacks inserting the Blackhole toolkit into web 
pages exploiting the latest Flash 0day. But the story was nothing of the 
sort.

[...]



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