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Cybersecurity Company Extorted Its Clients, Says Whistleblower
An anonymous reader writes: Richard Wallace used to be an investigator for Tiversa, a cybersecurity company that sells services like "breach protection" and "incident response." These days, Wallace is testifying in federal court that Tiversa faked breaches to encourage sales, and extorted clients that weren't interested. For example, Wallace said Tiversa targeted a cancer testing center called LabMD in 2010, tapping into their computers and downloading medical records. Tiversa then used those records as evidence to convince LabMD they had been hacked, offering its "incident response" service at the same time. LabMD didn't fall for it, so Tiversa told the FTC about the "hack." The FTC, none-the-wiser, went after LabMD in court, eventually destroying the business. Wallace has also cast suspicion on reports Tiversa has issued, including one saying President Obama's helicopter blueprints were found on Iranian computers.
"Hey, you need us for security protection, otherwise you never know when a break-in might happen, right Vinnie?"
"Yeah boss, this place *definitely* needs to pay for our security protection."
"See? You should listen to Vinnie, he's a security expert and shit."
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Details here: https://www.ftc.gov/enforcemen...
That's some messed up stuff. Tiversa needs to be burned to the ground, and their board members in actual jail.
So Tiversa breached systems to get data from them to show the system owner that they needed their services?
But if Tiversa did breach those systems, then they did need Tiversa's services didn't they?
Im off to go smash some windows.
Its okay though because i work for Window Smashers LLC.
I love how they use awards by law enforcement as an example of them being good actors. One of the old and scary problems in our legal system has always been law enforcement working with really shady companies and protecting them. The fraternal atmosphere tends to leave police departments particularly vulnerable to being scammed, esp when those scams result in things that benefit the department like cash, 'evidence', or validation of existing prejudice.
Were people with respected academic credentials involved?
Was anyone from Carnegie Mellon involved?
Did Carnegie Mellon have any involvement?
I don't care about Gen. Wesley Clark. Wasn't he the 4th stooge?
Hmm ... Iran has blueprints ... sounds bad. But of _course_ they have blueprints of that model helo -- the Shah bought them prior to 1979! Marine One is [usually] a Sikorski VH-3 "Sea King" which first flew in 1959.
When advocates make inflammatory claims that have innocent explanations, I consider them confidence crooks. They know their best arguments and have made them. Yet another example of lies being more revealing than the truth (so long as you already know it.)
Funny thing, but the Iraq war worked the same way. George Bush took the word of an informant (who would later turn out to be an Iranian spy); that Iraq had WMD.
No real investigation was done, and we invaded a country and slaughtered many hundreds of thousands, destabilized the entire region and ended up creating ISIS.
So, yeah, this kind of stuff happens all the time.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
So because it's been unstable for centuries, that justifies any acts that the US takes that could aid in its instability?
Nothing happened to the ex-employee.
Well, it kind of depends on why he was disgruntled. If he was fired for cause, he may have done something wrong and deserved to be fired. However, if the company laid him off because they had made him promises and didn't want to follow through, then the company deserves everything they got and more.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
They were breached and data did get out the bad actors, it really does not matter than it was those same said bad actors that told the FTC about it. LabMD failed to keep patient records safe and when they were told about the breach failed to act upon that information.
No sir I dont like it.
These regulatory and law enforcement douche-nozzles love to exercise their power over helpless victims. They raid small businesses, family farms and sole proprietorships just to get their jollies. Makes them feel like real tough guys to intimidate someone into compliance. The worst are the bureaucrats in agencies like OSHA and EPA.
Until you've run a small business, you can't possibly understand the nitpicking BS that these jerks will pull on you.
I come from a country where small thugs run business in a jurisdicitonal area....
In which area, the hoodlum gets to collect cash from small businesses in exchange for protection... but in fact they dont really provide any protection, that's just the cost for being able to run a business. Whoever refuses to pay, their business gets smashed/burnt...
This company we're reading about is exactly that and I hold the US government agencies responsible to make very very very sure that their entire group of decision makers go to jail... and compensate every penny of damage that has been done to LabMD.
Also, I expect government agencies to protect businesses... not destroying them. I can understand that the FTC was mis-led by the company and in turn destroyed LabMD... I want to know what they will do for LabMD, or the people that used to own it.
Hey, you defined a double standard twice!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Bollocks. They might have deserved a fine, or being ordered to pay compensation, but not this.
My take is that when someone makes an intentionally & blatantly false call to LE, then 1) the subject of the complaint should get the right to actually commit the crime against the complainant with impunity or 2) the complainant serves the maximum sentence for the alleged offence(s), doubled.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Of course not. It was based on Bush wanting to be a war president like his daddy. From there, they just had to get a few shady people to tell a few convenient lies and it's off to the races.
In every single, and I mean without exception, every single consulting company that I worked for/with the "security specialists" were full of shit assholes. The guys who were in charge of the actual network were very well trained and capable security people but they weren't marketing themselves as specialists. The security guys just spouted endless paranoia and blah blah'd about military grade security. Yet when put to a test not a single one of them could exploit a linux system that hadn't had an upgrade in a year.
What they didn't have in skill they made up in swagger and threats. If consultants in the company didn't submit their laptops to them for a security audit they got all shitty saying how our laziness would take down the company. So my solution was to hand them a laptop that I would get fresh from IT with nothing installed, no documents, and fully up to date. Then I would laugh at their report where they would say that I had all kinds of unencrypted documents and had installed insecure software on the laptop. Then when I showed this to upper management they got even angrier that I had wasted what otherwise would have been valuable billing hours, even though it was they who wanted to audit all the computers.
But the thing that finally broke their stranglehold over the company's management was when they bullied their way into a friend's project devastating his budget after they convinced the client he was working for that his unaudited system would leave their company wide open. So he made a mirror image of their laptop from a backup, changed the background to a picture of two guys having sex with the company logo of the client on the face of the guy getting it and a picture of the security "expert" over the face of the guy giving it. Then on the way to the meeting he swapped laptops. Security expert was fired that day.