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Four Threats For '09 You Haven't Heard of
ancientribe writes "Security experts are cautiously on the lookout for some lesser-known but potentially lethal threats that could be more difficult to prepare for and defend against in 2009. These aren't your typical enterprise hack attacks. They're mainly large-scale Internet threats — attacks that knock out sections of the Internet infrastructure, radical extremist hackers, Web attacks that adversely affect online ad revenue, and even the unthinkable: human casualties as a result of a cyberattack." Also known as the new group of things the fear mongers will use to make you do their bidding.
But we've heard of them all. What about that super volcano in Yellowstone? Now that is something that no one has heard of and it would be cool if Slashdot posted an article about that.
Why is "human causalities as the result of cyberattack" supposedly unthinkable?
'Three U.K. hospitals were forced to shut down their networks last month after a malware outbreak infiltrated their systems .. Prince says he worries that eventually, human lives could be affected by a cyberattack like that of those hospitals or attacks on national infrastructures such as utilities. "It will happen at some point," he says'
Have these security professionals ever considered using computers that don't get malware ?
Anti-virus, Anti-phishing, Spyware
davecb5620@gmail.com
The new self-parking Ford to be powered by Microsoft Sync!
Reader's clicking on infected links because they're articles are so full of ads, they can't tell where the "Next Page" link is anymore.
My solution is thus.
I think the biggest threat is our own idiocy, rather than some ominous force.
import system.cool.Sig;
are government and corporate interests that don't like the "leveling" effects of the internet. In eventual effect, how different is a DDOS attack from a Great Firewall. (not necessarily "of China") I know DDOS and filtering have different immediate effects, but I'm thinking of the social and political utility here, as well.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
We've pretty much had it with all your full blown paranoia.
Power off, Move your *ss out and GO GET A LIFE!
Don't forget to look left and right for cybermonsters just before you get off the door.
the unthinkable: human casualties as a result of a cyberattack.
My daughter tries to play this card. She says "If I can't get on myspace and talk to my friends, I'll just die." (She never dies)
"Lame" - Galaxar
http://www.darkreading.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=212700328
It's You and I against the World... When do we attack?
One U.S. hospital was recently hit with a denial-of-service attack that knocked its critical services offline temporarily. "There have been several close calls" including that one, notes Perimeter eSecurity's Prince, who couldn't reveal details about the attack on the hospital. Prince says the hospital was able to deploy some redundant power sources to keep its operations going during the attack on its network. But Prince says he worries that eventually, human lives could be affected by a cyberattack like that of those hospitals or attacks on national infrastructures such as utilities. "It will happen at some point," he says.
Of course you do. Got to keep those customers coming in.
The hospital I'm familiar with has an internal LAN with the Life or Death systems on it. The Docs that have access to it go through their gateway. In other words, a DOS attack would keep folks from seeing the hospital's website that has their marketing stuff, job listings, location, etc... nothing that would kill anyone.
See, the IT folks there are actually pretty smart and read the security journals and some even come from defense contractors. Imagine that. This hyperbole is just a PR statement to get the suits and their lawyers all worked up to hire people like that for very large fees.
First and foremost they're someone's push to get a .gov contract. Second, the scenarios outlined represent sensationalized what-if's that, if they ever happened, would be just as much the responsibility of the people who got hacked. You just can't put things on the internet and expect them to be secure. You can't. If you do, you're an idiot and you deserve to lose your job, get sued, and even go to prison for monumental stupidity.
In the scheme of things, while windows malware (I assume this is what you speak of) is an easy vector, it isn't the only vector. Plain and simple fact is, not everyone who uses a computer is competent, even when they should be (The same goes for car mechanics, doctors, etc).
Here is a really easy way to root a few Unix(like) boxes. Scan for some FTP servers. Log in and spider the directories. Can you make a file that has the executable bit set? Great! Do some fingerprinting to figure out what OS it is (this may not be necessary), upload an executable, then run it. You will be surprised at what said process can now access.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Stop talking. Please. You're going to kill us all.
There is precious little new in this story, just a little present-day Nostradamus mixed in with a conspiracy theory, alarmism, and an admission that the enemies of the western world are not stupid and know how to use computers.
If we want to go beyond panic stories, we have to start treating such attacks, any attacks, as real crimes. That means FBI needs to get involved, and there must be a serious effort at apprehension. Once apprehended, those folks must be treated like criminals, that means orange jumpsuites (not three-piece suites) and long prison terms. This must be publicized.
As far as foreign threats, we need to work with local authorities. If those actitivites are conducted from within war zones, they need to be treated as enemy saboteurs and shot.
It's time to stop distinguishing between "computer crime" and regular crime. The consequences are the same, the victims are the same, the costs are the same. Therefore, the penalties must also be the same.
Okay so Mytob shuts down a hospital. Frankly, hospitals and other public health entities shouldn't be running Windows. It's vulnerable and proven so time and again. Had they been on any *NIX-based system the spread of such a worm would have been mitigated.
I know, a tired old point but I'm frankly sick of hearing about government entities and public works entities being brought down because they've bought into the Windows-everywhere philosophy.
Bloody hell. Why does /. sometime mark posts as Anonymous when I am clearly logged in? Anyway, the above "Need to stop treating computer crime as separate" post is by 'hwyhobo'. I don't waste my time posting anonymously.
End anonymous moderation and posting on
That may not be as simple as it sounds. Sure, it is technologically feasible to lock down a computer system, but there are matters of money and politics to consider. Consider the expense of hiring a full time security team that can tune ACLs and security policies and monitor the hospital network for intrusions. Here in America, hospitals, especially public hospitals, often have to fight for every dollar just to afford medical equipment, and there is constant political wrangling about paying for healthcare. Investing millions of dollars per hospital to create a secure IT infrastructure is a difficult move to justify when you are engaged in a battle for money for other equipment, and a lot of people either do not understand or do not care about the risks patients face from IT failures.
There is also the matter of commercialization of healthcare software. Gone are the days when a hospital's IT staff would roll their own middle tier and front end systems -- healthcare software systems are now purchased from companies that "specialize" in such products. Those companies often market proprietary software, compile it for the world's most popular desktop OS, and send shrink-wrapped copies to hospitals. That software can force choices upon the hospital, like requiring a certain database that only runs on a certain server OS or preventing certain ACLs from being in place because of the manner in which the software utilizes system resources. It is neither malice nor incompetence, it is just a byproduct of the system we have in place for managing our healthcare centers.
Personally, I have never understood how utilities might wind up in a situation where their systems may be vulnerable to a malware attack. I would think that the critical systems in utilities would be offline and running some sort of highly application-specific software, but I could be wrong.
Palm trees and 8
...forget the 'un-. What say we start looking out for some of the thinkable, such as the cables that keep getting slashed in the Med, eh?
From TFA:
e-bomb
Middle Eastern cybercartels
And so forth. Lots of technobabble, not much factual information.
Easy fix. Move clients to OS X, a platform which is completely immune to these types of attacks.
Having an OS that is virtually 100% secure gives peace of mind.
Here is a quote from the article:
David Maynor, CTO with Errata Security, says '09 could be the year when the first large-scale and widespread attack occurs on the Internet's infrastructure. "I think with the [hacking] work being done on Cisco and routing gear in general we'll see the first wide-scale 'e-bomb' that will break peering between ISPs and make large portions of the Internet unreachable," Maynor says.
Obama's IT security plan (seen here: http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/081208_securingcyberspace_44.pdf) also spends several pages talking about a worldwide attack against BGP, or perhaps against something inherent in Cisco or Juniper gear that is attackable.
Other than the attack earlier this year where Pakistan accidently blackholed Youtube worldwide when they injected bogus routes and PCCI stupidly forwarded them on, what exactly do they think can be done? In case they don't know, BGP peers are usually in access lists. And ACLs are fast or ASIC switched, so they are extremely resistant to DDOS attacks (i.e. sending a bunch of packets against a router interface violating an ACL isn't going to do much to a big router), and the rest of BGP is pretty strong based on the trust relationships. I have more confidence in the operators on Nanog fixing any storm than I do sysadmins worldwide.
If they think BGPv5 with PKI is the answer, they have another thing coming. Did you see the root CA spoof this week? Trust via ACLs is monitored and refined with peers and operators, trust via a certificate? A mess waiting to happen.
It sounds to me like David Maynor is just looking to short some Cisco and Juniper stock, and doesn't know anything about how the internet actually works.
i.e. ones which don't run windows.......
Even by the (low) standards of fear-mongering this is utter drivel. Pop-up blockers are an apocalyptic threat to the internet now?
Those are all fallible. How about NOT CONNECTING CRITICAL SYSTEMS TO THE INTERNET? And if they have to receive information, force people to manually insert it.
Last time i checked FTP didn't have an EXEC method.
I'm guessing you mean pray it has a directory inside a website (then why bother fingerprinting the OS) or you have shell access which just brings up the question of why you bothered ftping a file in the first place your more than halfway there!!
Now, I'm all for taking sensible precautions, such as keeping my wallet in an inside pocket and locking the house before going out. However, I refuse to be bullied into changing my lifestyle just in case the one-in-a-billion chance that something bad, but foreseeable, might just happen to me.
Even more, I resent other people, who can't tell the difference between the possible and the probable laying down all sorts of restrictions, with the force of law and punishment, on the pretext that "it's for my own good".
These guys are the biggest threat to the internet (and everything else) today. --- There, I feel better now.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
just kidding, I love posting anonymously! It makes my balls all a-tingle.
signed, hwyhobo
It seems like for the last decade, that security ppl scream that Linux virus are everywhere. I am guessing that they are now screaming the same for new items.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Could an event like this be the potential kick in the ass that we need to receive to make people realize that security on the internet needs to be taken seriously? Think about how many credit card #'s are stolen/year, and how common it is to hear about identity theft. Despite this, little is being done to prevent these rampant crimes outside of gimmicky solutions that are little more than band-aids.
I almost feel like if something occurred and caught the attention of the news for a few days, it may make companies take security more seriously.
Be very afraid!
Good.
Now I will lead you back to safety if you do whatever I say...
And being herded into endless Hotel Miramars and Bellvueses and Continentales with their modern international luxury roomettes and draught Red Barrel and swimming pools full of fat German businessmen pretending they're acrobats forming pyramids and frightening the children and barging into queues and if you're not at your table spot on seven you miss the bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, the first item on the menu of International Cuisine, and every Thursday night the hotel has a bloody cabaret in the bar, featuring a tiny emaciated dago with nine-inch hips and some bloated fat tart with her hair brylcreemed down and a big arse presenting Flamenco for Foreigners.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
Recommendation: more tinfoil, less coffee.
tldr
I wanna know who keeps cutting the cables to Egypt and the rest of the Middle East. Talk about knocking out sections of infrastructure.
RebateFX.com - Spread rebates for Forex traders
I know a few medical doctors, including one who went through Computer Science undergraduate with me. They like their Microsoft products.
What, like abacuses?
This step is the hard part: I'm not aware of any FTP server that provides the ability to run arbitrary executables.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
It's not that simple. You forgot about embedded systems. For example, a few years ago as an employee of a security software company, I had a conversation with the head of IT at one of the largest healthcare providers in the U.S. The conversation went something like this (I'm paraphrasing):
Him: We have a had a heck of a time dealing with systems ping-ponging the Blaster worm at each other. Rebooting them fixes the problem temporarily, but eventually they just get reinfected.
Me: Sounds pretty straight forward, we can help you remove malware from infected systems.
Him: Well, a lot of our "Windows systems" are actually portable medical devices like kidney dialysis, heart monitors and life support machines running embedded Windows NT. They are built by the manufacturer with a particular software load and certified by the Department of Health. I can't change so much as a registry key on them or they will no longer be certified for use in a hospital.
Me: So let me get this straight, you're saying that you have life support systems that are infected with worms and you can't disinfect them because the procedure would make the life support system less safe than it is with active malware on it?
Him: Beyond rebooting and using external firewalls to block worm packets, my hands are tied so long as the system continues to perform its primary function.
Me: Have you considered just disconnecting them from the network?
Him: No can do. We need to monitor status and administer remotely.
Now, I'm not saying that this situation is still true today or even that it was representative of the state of the healthcare industry at the time, but I find it highly believable that a virus/malware/worm outbreak somewhere *has* had an impact on someone's life.
The biggest threat facing the internet in 2009 is pointless scaremongering laid out on more pages than it should be to get more ad revenue.
Ah, for mod points for this.
I don't waste my time posting anonymously.
Neither do I.
Here's a way to root a box:
FTP a file to the box
login as root
run it
They're mainly large-scale Internet threats â" attacks that knock out sections of the Internet infrastructure,
Otherwise known as "anchors".....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
so who certified the malware ??
Because of your post, I think we need a "Billy Madison" moderation.
What you wrote wasn't flamebait or over rated, it was stupid.
"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
Oh sure. Clearly this is your attempt to hijack AC's hard-earned and richly deserved +1 Insightful mod rating to claim for yourself, hwyhobo. SHAME! SHAME! Stealing from a poor AC, tsk. Why don't you go copy and reword some member's +5 Insightful comment to satisfy your lust for ill-gotten karma, and stop stealing from my AC brothers.
Karma hijacking from Anonymous Cowards must stop now!
Layered security and defense in depth are good principles, but are no magic bullet.
Security is an ongoing process, a war that will never be won. The first battle in that war is complacency.
I'm glad your hospital's IT folks are smart. I hope they're smart enough to realise that they can't afford to maintain internal 24x7x365 expertise in network security and have retained some additional help.
...just wait until that terrorist with a load of Sony laptop-batteries strapped around his waist come calling in a populated area near you.
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
Either that or a TL;DR moderation.
Have these security professionals ever considered using computers that don't get malware ?
Personally, I have never understood how utilities might wind up in a situation where their systems may be vulnerable to a malware attack. I would think that the critical systems in utilities would be offline and running some sort of highly application-specific software, but I could be wrong.
Even our (the UK's) national electricity grid (and supergrid) are administered remotely by control centres. A control centre monitors the monitoring stations and controls the various control switches around the country from afar. For this to happen everything has to be online. Although perhaps just not TCP/IP using the phone network, they still need to be online. However I must admit that the control software I saw was on Unix systems and only running the control software (apparently because it had to be real time).
If this were really happening, what would you think?
Here's a way to root a box:
We now know what the ever-mysterious step 2 (formally known only as "???") is!
Either that or a TL;DR moderation.
Unfortunately I did read it, he was trying to make a point and I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but in the it was just trying.
That sounds like an absolutely plausible conversation. It's not an issue with malware, it's an issue of pointy-headed-bosses and sheer beaurocracy. The tech was right. If he changes ANYTHING on the embedded box, he'll be fired because the device will no longer be certified.
That's the way this stuff works. In a hospital, proper paperwork is more important than actually saving lives. That's why I have to laugh every time I watch "House" and that doctor does something that no hospital would allow him to do.
I know a vascular tech and he tells me the most amazing stories about how "procedures" actually get in the way of healthcare.
If he wants to get the malware removed, he'd have to send the device back to the manufacturer, they would wipe it and then recertify it, and send it back. He has no authority to change the system himself since he's incapable of recertifying it. The problem is, sending the unit back to have it cleaned of malware and recertified would probably take months.
Welcome to the health care system. Leave your logic at the door.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
inconceivable !!
The web is _slightly_ kinder since it does not have press- or airtime deadlines. The hits just drop off. Yet electrons need to be sold too!
Probably the same one who certified your sanity.
> Web attacks that adversely affect online ad revenue
Oh noes! Teh revenue.
No! He needs to keep typing at 55 WPM to prevent the bomH9^%$^}NO CARRIER
It sounds like rebooting the device actually clears the worm but they have so much malware traffic in the network that it gets reinfected due to them being unable to update the software w/ the fix...
Seems like the best solution would be a handy network engineer blocking these communications at layer 4...then you reboot the devices at your leisure and eventually you should be relatively clean.
(this assumes a lot, it's hard to say what shape the environment was in)
You can pick your nodes, and you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your friend's nodes
Cause if they attack the tubes, those things will collapse under the pressure and that will increase global warming, as well as depressurize most skyscrapers worldwide.
And nobody likes to see a 300 story skyscraper collapse into a 12 story puddle of goo.
And then where will we be?
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Back in 99? I had a philosophy teacher who was crazy smart and did crazy things right. He was always talking about how great the "internet" was because of all the things you can do on it (like getting around censoring).
:P
So I told him about an idea of how you could "cripple" the inet. My idea came from netsplits on a fairly large IRC network. When I explained it to him, he said "that can't happen because of redundancy." Well, IRC networks have redundancy too. But that's the point, not to eliminate it but damage it enough where it's not usable.
So FF to 2009 and now we're hearing about it. Have the whole router DNS forwarding debacle with authority issues being handed out left and right, what's to keep this sort of attack from happening?
Anyhow, just like the air port security improvements, there's only 1 thing that'll keep us safe, and it's not technology!
My abilities are only limited by my imagination
Furthermore:
"One U.S. hospital was recently hit with a denial-of-service attack that knocked its critical services offline temporarily. "There have been several close calls" including that one, notes Perimeter eSecurity's Prince, who couldn't reveal details about the attack on the hospital. Prince says the hospital was able to deploy some redundant power sources to keep its operations going during the attack on its network."
Many of your newer "and not so new" engineering controls are network-able and web enabled. All of your mechanical engineering's PLS's, HMI's, various sensors, are all pulled into one panel for convenience and productivity. Someone gets into the network, finds the address of the industrial power switching controls and faults it out, at the same time faults out the PLC's controlling the generators. Now the maintenance staff is power cycling control hardware as fast as they can because the hospital no longer has power.
The little boat flipped over. A virus in the Gibson computer system claimed responsibility.
tfa,
" "There have been several close calls" including that one, notes Perimeter eSecurity's Prince, who couldn't reveal details about the attack on the hospital. Prince says the hospital was able to deploy some redundant power sources to keep its operations going during the attack on its network."
Wait, the attack on "their network" took out their POWER? What? That makes noticeably less sense than the rest of the completely alarmist bullshit article designed only to sell security consulting.
Couldn't reveal details!!?? Um YA, cause he obviously can't make up a decent scary lie in his head, he has to write it down & check to make sure it makes sense.
Clearly this is your attempt to hijack AC's hard-earned and richly deserved +1
Yeah, that must be it. Like a karma vampire, I move through the night and suck the life essence of the Anonymous Cowards. That must be why they are all so pale.
;)
End anonymous moderation and posting on
Third-party content is ultimately not necessary for web ads. Advertisers could submit ads to be published by the sites themselves the way it's done in every other form of media. I suppose that there is some convenience in just serving ads from a third party but is that really worth the security and privacy costs? The main point of third-party content is to track users. Again, this isn't necessary. It's only done because one advertising agency is at a disadvantage if they don't do it while their competitors do. I realy don't see any great benefit to society from advertisers being able to profile people and deliver more and more targeted ads to them. Certainly, for my part, I don't think it's worth the loss of privacy and I've been blocking some kinds of third-party content for years because of it.
Even bigger threats:
1) Undersea cable cuts
2) Hub Power Outages
3) Botnets
Seeing as how *no* skills are required to execute the first two of the aforementioned items, I'd say that those are the biggest things to watch out for.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Here is a really easy way to root a few Unix(like) boxes. Scan for some FTP servers. Log in and spider the directories. Can you make a file that has the executable bit set? Great! Do some fingerprinting to figure out what OS it is (this may not be necessary), upload an executable, then run it. You will be surprised at what said process can now access.
Wasn't the article referencing 2009, rather than 1989?
They could also physically isolate networks on which lives depend.
but it doesn't seem to show up...
Your brain is not a computer.
Any theory that does not provide a method to falsify and validate its claims is a useless theory.
In real science we state claims and provide proof and theory as to why we accept them as true. Furthermore, we make predictions that can be tested. In science, nothing is "disproved," all things are assumed false until proved. Its make more sense that way as I can not disprove your watermellon claim, but you have offered no theory or proof as to why your claims should be believed in the first place.
I could claim anything and you would be foolish to believe. If I make a claim and provide proof and a theory to explain why it is so, and you check out the proof, you have the ability to prove or disprove it on your own.
Not only that, no sane ftp server puts the execute bit on an uploaded file.
Perhaps the expense of the team is so much it would be un-ethical to waste the money (passing the cost onto everyone who has insurance).
The value of a human life (in these low probability of trouble situations) is 5-10 million (determined by the choices people make trading safety for savings on a daily basis). If there has not been a death yet (implied by the summery), why should we be spending so much money on the hypothetical. The amount we spend now is obviously proving to be pretty effective, how many times should we multiply it for that tiny bit extra?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Assuming that rebooting the device did flush the worm (very doubtful), an IPS would help clear up the problem and would have helped prevent it in the first place. No need to modify the device itself. These days, I find it surprising that an IPS isn't standard network security equipment at hospitals.
midway through surgery
When the FDA approves a medical device, your hands are really tied as to what modifications you can make to it, either as an end-user or even as the original supplier patching the system after release.
A better solution would be to build the devices on a more secure platform right from the initial design and development stage, and get FDA approval for it on that platform... but then if it was a simple as that, somebody would already be doing it, right?
K.
If evolution or "survival of the fittest" is true then the genetic code leading to stupidity would be weeded out, since obviously being stupid decreases your chances of survival. If you are stupid evotion means you shouldn't exist. YOU ARE STUPID hence evolution is proven to be false. q.e.d.