Espionage is internationally allowed in peacetime. The problem is that both espionage and cyber-attacks require the same computer and network intrusions, and the difference is only a few keystrokes.
And since this Russian operation isn’t at all targeted, the entire world is at risk – and not just from Russia. Many countries carry out these sorts of operations, none more extensively than the US. The solution is to prioritize security and defense over espionage and attack.
Here’s what we know: Orion is a network management product from a company named SolarWinds, with over 300,000 customers worldwide.
Sometime before March, hackers working for the Russian SVR – previously known as the KGB – hacked into SolarWinds and slipped a backdoor into an Orion software update.
(We don’t know how, but last year the company’s update server was protected by the password “solarwinds123” – something that speaks to a lack of security culture.)
Users who downloaded and installed that corrupted update between March and June unwittingly gave SVR hackers access to their networks.
✁
It’s hard to overstate how bad this is.
We are still learning about US government organizations breached: the state department, the treasury department, homeland security, the Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories (where nuclear weapons are developed), the National Nuclear Security Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and many more.
At this point, there’s no indication that any classified networks were penetrated, although that could change easily. It will take years to learn which networks the SVR has penetrated, and where it still has access.
Much of that will probably be classified, which means that we, the public, will never know.
President Donald Trump signed a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package Sunday, despite a remarkable video message he posted to social media days earlier in which he called the bipartisan legislation a “disgrace.”
“I am signing this bill to restore unemployment benefits, stop evictions, provide rental assistance, add money for PPP, return our airline workers back to work, add substantially more money for vaccine distribution, and much more,” Trump said in a statement announcing he had signed the bill.
After weeks of negotiation and bipartisan votes of approval in the House and Senate, Trump on Tuesday unexpectedly slammed the COVID stimulus legislation but stopped short of saying he would veto it. The message upended Washington, drew bipartisan condemnation and threatened to end a chaotic year with a government shutdown.
But after a growing number of Republicans pushed back on Trump’s reticence – and Democrats quickly embraced Trump’s idea of larger direct payments and used it as a cudgel against GOP lawmakers – Trump relented.
The president, who has been spending the holidays at his Florida resort, hinted he had won concessions from lawmakers but it was not clear if that was actually the case.
The bill, which was attached to a $1.4 trillion spending measure to keep the government running through September. Without the bill, government funding had been set to run out at midnight on Monday.
Trump said he would request that Congress rescind some of the funding it approved, but the prospects for those requests were slim given that President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated in less than a month.
tRump’s strategy here is a good example of how not to use the power of the presidency to negotiate. In many respects, this is a microcosm of his entire presidency.
First, tRump refused to even get involved personally for months, then he watched a supermajority in both chambers negotiate and agree to terms. Then at the last minute, tRump threatens to veto the bills unless if his demands aren’t met, only to back down a few days later and sign it anyways without getting anything he wanted, while looking weak.
And tRump hung his Treasury secretary, whom he deputized to negotiate the deal, out to dry, while pissing off the rest of his party.
That’s tRump’s art of the deal. A lot of noise and fury, but little actual constructive action, and of course innocent people were hurt in the process.
kaffekup almost 4 years ago
Nothing we need will get done.
Everything we’ll have to fix will indeed get done.
Renatus Profuturus Frigeridus Premium Member almost 4 years ago
Something will happen this week : it’s my birthday !
Cheapskate0 almost 4 years ago
Zombies! Me love zombies! (Like what else could happen this year? A terrorist attack in Nashville or something?)
KenseidenXL almost 4 years ago
Why did you have to say that?!
Sanspareil almost 4 years ago
Well, bad cartooning is obviously being done!!
admiree2 almost 4 years ago
A Zombie attack to end the year 2020? Sure, why not? Seems appropriate.
They must have consumed all the brains in the red states and are moving into new territory. Let’s hope that they will not start with Georgia.
whahoppened almost 4 years ago
Bail-out bill signed, One down!
RobinHood almost 4 years ago
Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And the violence caused such silence.
Who are we mistaken?
But you see, it’s not me, it’s not my family
In your head, in your head, they are fightin’
With their tanks and their bombs and their
bombs and their guns
In your head, in your head, they are cryin
Zombie, Zombie
Dolores O’Riordan
William Robbins Premium Member almost 4 years ago
Almost nothing, Trump’s last gasp “Look at me, I matter” fizzled. Hungry, fearful families can feed their children and stay warm and dry.
Someone wrote me that she could go on and on about the year’s tragedies but she was writing it off as “2020 be-hindsight”.
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
Well, Carmen… “Nothing gets done” isn’t strictly true…
~
Espionage is internationally allowed in peacetime. The problem is that both espionage and cyber-attacks require the same computer and network intrusions, and the difference is only a few keystrokes.
And since this Russian operation isn’t at all targeted, the entire world is at risk – and not just from Russia. Many countries carry out these sorts of operations, none more extensively than the US. The solution is to prioritize security and defense over espionage and attack.
Here’s what we know: Orion is a network management product from a company named SolarWinds, with over 300,000 customers worldwide.
Sometime before March, hackers working for the Russian SVR – previously known as the KGB – hacked into SolarWinds and slipped a backdoor into an Orion software update.
(We don’t know how, but last year the company’s update server was protected by the password “solarwinds123” – something that speaks to a lack of security culture.)
Users who downloaded and installed that corrupted update between March and June unwittingly gave SVR hackers access to their networks.
✁
It’s hard to overstate how bad this is.
We are still learning about US government organizations breached: the state department, the treasury department, homeland security, the Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories (where nuclear weapons are developed), the National Nuclear Security Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and many more.
At this point, there’s no indication that any classified networks were penetrated, although that could change easily. It will take years to learn which networks the SVR has penetrated, and where it still has access.
Much of that will probably be classified, which means that we, the public, will never know.
~
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/23/cyber-attack-us-security-protocols
Silly Season almost 4 years ago
The whining still continues….
~
President Donald Trump signed a $900 billion COVID-19 relief package Sunday, despite a remarkable video message he posted to social media days earlier in which he called the bipartisan legislation a “disgrace.”
“I am signing this bill to restore unemployment benefits, stop evictions, provide rental assistance, add money for PPP, return our airline workers back to work, add substantially more money for vaccine distribution, and much more,” Trump said in a statement announcing he had signed the bill.
After weeks of negotiation and bipartisan votes of approval in the House and Senate, Trump on Tuesday unexpectedly slammed the COVID stimulus legislation but stopped short of saying he would veto it. The message upended Washington, drew bipartisan condemnation and threatened to end a chaotic year with a government shutdown.
But after a growing number of Republicans pushed back on Trump’s reticence – and Democrats quickly embraced Trump’s idea of larger direct payments and used it as a cudgel against GOP lawmakers – Trump relented.
The president, who has been spending the holidays at his Florida resort, hinted he had won concessions from lawmakers but it was not clear if that was actually the case.
The bill, which was attached to a $1.4 trillion spending measure to keep the government running through September. Without the bill, government funding had been set to run out at midnight on Monday.
Trump said he would request that Congress rescind some of the funding it approved, but the prospects for those requests were slim given that President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated in less than a month.
~
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/27/trump-signs-900-b-covid-relief-package-he-called-disgrace/4023316001/
dotbup almost 4 years ago
tRump’s strategy here is a good example of how not to use the power of the presidency to negotiate. In many respects, this is a microcosm of his entire presidency.
First, tRump refused to even get involved personally for months, then he watched a supermajority in both chambers negotiate and agree to terms. Then at the last minute, tRump threatens to veto the bills unless if his demands aren’t met, only to back down a few days later and sign it anyways without getting anything he wanted, while looking weak.
And tRump hung his Treasury secretary, whom he deputized to negotiate the deal, out to dry, while pissing off the rest of his party.
That’s tRump’s art of the deal. A lot of noise and fury, but little actual constructive action, and of course innocent people were hurt in the process.
ferddo almost 4 years ago
Nothing can happen this week? You underestimate Trump at your own peril…
Kip W almost 4 years ago
“Oh, what to call this special time of year between the hols? ’Tain’t Christmas. ’Tain’t New Year’s…”