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The Good News About the NSA Theft
And it’s a good thing, too. Not because of the exposure of massive hackability (with simple tools provided by the NSA’s coders) of enterprise and private networks; many businesses will likely be hacked in the next few months while vendors like Cisco frantically patch their code, and that’s bad for everyone. Nor is the theft good because of the way vendors will be patching their gear, since more exploits become possible every day and fixing these problems is an un-winnable war now that so much is public knowledge.
The good news is that the NSA must now confront the fact that they aren’t as superior as they think they are. They kept their toys locked up because — in their hearts of cold hearts — they believed that nobody could ever work out the things they worked out, or ever steal it. Maybe, just maybe, the exposure will break their hubris and the world will become a more secure place with those exploits behind patches, where they belong.
Published in Domestic Policy
Now, let’s be kind. These people do believe they are serving their country and the nation’s safety and security. (Or at least, close enough for government work.)
Microsoft Accidentally Leaks Key to Windows Backdoor
In a cautionary tale to those who favor government-mandated backdoors to security systems, Microsoftaccidentally leaked the key protecting its UEFI Secure boot feature.
As we all know, the problems with backdoors are less the cryptography and more the systems surrounding the cryptography.
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/08/microsoft_accid.html
Don’t worry, everything is under control…
In this case, instead of that leak (which I wrote about earlier), actual bad things will happen. People will get things stolen from them.
Architect: “So, any ideas for how you’d like this building to look?”
NSA: “Villainy.”
I’m not sure if this is knowable, but does NSA offer “rewards” to those who successfully exploit/hack its systems? Or are they too proud?
How is it that the NSA was hacked? Heck, even Hillary Clinton knows that the key to ironclad protection is to have your server on property guarded by the Secret Service!
I like to think the NSA are there to keep us safe – our people in the field both here and abroad depend on their information as well as keeping their cover – so a former NSA person and a former counter-operative said there is much more to this – they said Snowden was small potatoes – for this level of hacking, and the other things that have happened at other dept. agencies, they believe it was inside – as in good old fashioned furry rodents who live underground and tunnel through your lawn…………….
Nobody that has hacked the NSA was ever found (again)
The software and exploits they use to crack others were leaked not raw data sets. They probably let some third party borrow the tools and that is how they got leaked.
It looks more like an account active in 2013 was compromised, and the tools that account had access to were stolen.