Hacking

[imoldernu]

Not so much the guy who will steal my SS number, but the ultimate hacking worry... cyber hacking to affect our world.

Current... today's news is concerned with government and infrastructure hacking, with what seems to play to our worst immediate fears: Communications, the power grid, and our water supply.

Just a start to open a dialog about the subject, which will inevitably be front page news... whether tomorrow or a year from now.

To see how close we are, Google News (Cyber Attacks) just in the past week

 

[street]

My CC was hacked a few weeks ago and had to go through the hassle of all that. I can only see the problem of hacking getting worse as time goes on.

 

[mpeirce]

Credit card hacking should only rise to the level of a large annoyance since the CC companies cover your loses.

Having full identity theft situation could get really nasty.

The scenario I worry about is a state actor (or substate like some organized terror group) actually taking out something like the power grid or similar (financial networks, air traffic control, etc.) It would be hard to do, but it could be done.

And it very well might be very hard to figure out definitely who did it. There are many ways to impersonate other actors - this is commonly done for lesser hacks today. You really don't want to start a shooting war in response to an attack and then find out that the country you attacked wasn't even really the culprit.

 

[cbo111]

Not so much the guy who will steal my SS number, but the ultimate hacking worry... cyber hacking to affect our world.

Current... today's news is concerned with government and infrastructure hacking, with what seems to play to our worst immediate fears: Communications, the power grid, and our water supply.

Just a start to open a dialog about the subject, which will inevitably be front page news... whether tomorrow or a year from now.

To see how close we are, Google News (Cyber Attacks) just in the past week

And lets not forget election machine hacking, something that several of our adversaries are quite skilled at doing. I'm not normally a Debbie-downer, but this internet thing we all enjoy could eventually spell the end of our nation if left unchecked.

 

[mpeirce]

And lets not forget election machine hacking, something that several of our adversaries are quite skilled at doing.

I’m not aware of any proven electronic voting machine hacking during a US election.

People have demonstrated hacks that require physical (or at least WiFi) access at recent defcons.

There certainly have been attacks against various election related websites and databases, but that’s different from changing votes on a voting machine.

And again, saying an attack was from a certain country just because it originated at a certain IP address or there are logs containeingncharacters or words associated with a certain language isn’t really definitive.

 

[cbo111]

I’m not aware of any proven electronic voting machine hacking during a US election.

People have demonstrated hacks that require physical (or at least WiFi) access at recent defcons.

There certainly have been attacks against various election related websites and databases, but that’s different from changing votes on a voting machine.

And again, saying an attack was from a certain country just because it originated at a certain IP address or there are logs containeingncharacters or words associated with a certain language isn’t really definitive.

Mpeirce, do a simple search for election machine hacking. It is apparently not too difficult. The notion that you are "unaware" of any proven electronic voting machine hacking is moot. The fact that this capability exists is enough to spur mass chaos in the coming years when it, in fact, occurs.

 

[imoldernu]

Ask Texas...
https://www.newsweek.com/texas-ransomware-bitcoin-hackers-1454865

... and check out Baltimore's cost to fix their problem.
and...

A report from Cybersecurity Ventures estimated that damages from ransomware attacks cost as much as $8 billion globally in 2018.

for starters...

a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon ...

And that's just about "information" hacks... What about actual infrastructure interference.

 

[mpeirce]

Mpeirce, do a simple search for election machine hacking. It is apparently not too difficult. The notion that you are "unaware" of any proven electronic voting machine hacking is moot. The fact that this capability exists is enough to spur mass chaos in the coming years when it, in fact, occurs.

I certainly didn't say it's not possible in the future. Of course we need to guard against this, but what I am saying is that some folks think that vote tampering by "adversaries" has already happened. And there is simply no proof of that at this point.

 

[joeea]

And again, saying an attack was from a certain country just because it originated at a certain IP address or there are logs containeingncharacters or words associated with a certain language isn’t really definitive.

Hopefully you don't think that agencies don't know which actors are attempting these attacks.

Agencies can tell where the attack originated without relying on IP addresses or characters in the logs.

 

[mh]

Not so much the guy who will steal my SS number, but the ultimate hacking worry... cyber hacking to affect our world.

Current... today's news is concerned with government and infrastructure hacking, with what seems to play to our worst immediate fears: Communications, the power grid, and our water supply.

Just a start to open a dialog about the subject, which will inevitably be front page news... whether tomorrow or a year from now.

To see how close we are, Google News (Cyber Attacks) just in the past week

Never mind that. They’re hacking our butt plugs ! https://www.google.com/amp/s/boingboing.net/2019/08/16/internet-of-santorum.html/amp . The end of civilization as we know it !!!!

 

[Andy R]

I agree with the OP. Advancements in artificial intelligence are happening quickly. Once Artificial General Intelligences is here things will evolve at a pace never seen before. Once a supercomputer can learn every single hacking vector and apply that, there will be essentially no security. Decryption will be possible, it's a crazy scenario.

The Chinese were thinking ahead with the launch of their Micius satellite that can teleport a photo which houses the encryption key (link). Of course, we (USA) have space planes flying around, probably ready to take out satellites like the Micius rendering the security they provide useless. It almost seems science fiction, but it's not.

IMO one of the failures in leadership right now is not planning for the future. I think we, humanity, all nations, all religions, all people, should have a long term plan, like 500 years. Plans to tackle environmental concerns, a plan to help poor nations develop, a plan to protect humanity, culture, languages, etc. I personally think our vision is too narrow, looking out decades, maybe a century. As we all know, change is slow but we have come a long way in a couple hundreds years. We will evolve even further and faster in the coming 200 years.

IMO, one of the biggest disruptors to any potential plans would be unethical use of hacking. It's a big deal. Very big and should be a concern IMO. I hope the government/military is on it.

 

[imoldernu]

Taking guesses as to how much the 20 Texas government entities will pay in ransomware to get their information back...
precedents:

Texas is not the first state to fall victim to ransomware attacks. It isn’t uncommon for hackers to demand up to six-figure sums in order to get governments’ computer systems back up and running, and it’s also not unusual for towns to actually pay the ransom. For example, CNBC reported in June that Baltimore had spent millions to regain access to its networks following ransomware attacks.

And in two Florida towns, hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent to obtain access to their local government networks again. In Riviera Beach, Fla., the city paid $600,000 in ransom. Lake City, located west of Jacksonville, spent nearly half a million dollars to get its data unlocked.

Whaddya think? How much?

 

[GrayHare]

IMO, one of the biggest disruptors to any potential plans would be unethical use of hacking. It's a big deal. Very big and should be a concern IMO. I hope the government/military is on it.

There already exist whole buildings that are Faraday cages. I expect to see more.

 

[mpeirce]

A Major Cyber Attack Could Be Just as Deadly as Nuclear Weapons

The problem of disguised attacks...

My concern is not intended to downplay the devastating and immediate effects of a nuclear attack. Rather, it’s to point out that some of the international protections against nuclear conflicts don’t exist for cyberattacks. For instance, the idea of “mutual assured destruction” suggests that no country should launch a nuclear weapon at another nuclear-armed nation: The launch would likely be detected, and the target nation would launch its own weapons in response, destroying both nations.

Cyberattackers have fewer inhibitions. For one thing, it’s much easier to disguise the source of a digital incursion than it is to hide where a missile blasted off from. Further, cyberwarfare can start small, targeting even a single phone or laptop. Larger attacks might target businesses, such as banks or hotels, or a government agency. But those aren’t enough to escalate a conflict to the nuclear scale.

We need more public education and discussion of this sort of thing.

 

[bolt]

Some folks might like this movie:

My reading & research has shown me that's theres been more capital stolen since the inception of the internet= (70s) than from the beginning of time, thats recorded time of course!

Of course we have more money sloshing around the world these days(70s to current days) so that's a consideration also.

Good luck!