Political Party's Videoconference System Hacked, Allowed Spying On Demand

The political party heading the Quebec parliament "had its internal videoconference system hacked in what seems to be a default password hack," writes Slashdot reader courteaudotbiz , citing reports in a Canadian newspaper. "Quebec Liberals got a lesson in how not to use the internet," joked one Quebec news station, writing that the security flaw "allowed anyone to gain access to strategy meetings and watch any of the party's live video conferences; and at least one person did... According to the source it was as easy as using a commonly used password, that is often the default code that never gets changed."

While the default password has since been changed, it represents the second high-profile Canadian password screw-up, since last week in Winnipeg, "Two 14-year-old high school students managed to hack into a Bank of Montreal ATM at a super market during their lunch break using an operator's manual they found online... They notified a nearby BMO branch manager, who was nice enough to write the pair notes for being absent from school as they showed security personnel how they did it."

Comments

Who is hiring the security guys at the Bank?

[BoRegardless]

They should be publicly insulted & fired.

Re:Who is hiring the security guys at the Bank?

[invictusvoyd]

Who is hiring the guys who are hiring security guys at the Bank?
They will never be publicly insulted. And what did you say ? fired? hehe..

Re:Who is hiring the security guys at the Bank?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

They should be publicly insulted & fired.

It's Canada. They are probably required to give them therapy and training and a second chance.

As for the political conference video watching, don't governments run around saying, "Don't worry about the cameras...if you have nothing to hide." How much more so it should apply for those power hungry plotters

Incorrect summary about the bank hack

[AchilleTalon]

The BMO ATM was not hacked two weeks ago, it was hacked two YEARS ago. http://o.canada.com/news/bmo-a...

Re: Incorrect summary about the bank hack

[invictusvoyd]

used an ATM operatorsâ(TM) manual they found online to get into the administrator mode of an ATM at a Safeway grocery store
They managed to crack the password on the first try, a result of BMOâ(TM)s machine using one of the factory default passwords that had apparently never been changed.

I'm seriously feeling a little giddy right now.

Re: Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

If it was the US they would have arrested those kids. They really do things differently up in Canada.

06/09/2014

[Anonymous Coward]

Last week? Well, last week, 2 years ago.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/06/09/bmo-atm-hacked_n_5473217.html

Wow. Can we please replace EditorDavid?

It's all skewed

[invictusvoyd]

Please excuse Mr. Caleb Turon and Matthew Hewlett for being late during their lunch hour due to assisting BMO with security.

If you can jail someone for a joint , these kids deserve a fucking medal.

Re: Canada

[Anonymous Coward]

countries in Canada

It is probably better for the kids in the US that they are sent to jail. Clearly, they have a chance at a better education there.

Does that really count?

[Jfetjunky]

Is it really "hacking" when it's just a matter of some walnut being so incompetent as to not reset a default password? Seems like intelligent guessing to me.

Re:Does that really count?

[jofas]

Have you seen "Idiocracy"? Yesterday's trying-default-mfg-passwd is today's "hacking". Look on the plus side: if you *do* change the default password, you are a "security expert".

Re:Does that really count?

[Coren22]

Look on the plus side: if you *do* change the default password, you are a "security expert".

That explains so many of my recent arguments.

Re: Canada

[davester666]

In today's lesson "Canadian" and "American" are not races, therefore the GP, which only discussed nationalities.

If the person wrote something like "If it was those slant-eyes at the Bank of China they would have arrested those kids", that would be racist.

And yes, just from news reports, US companies appear much more likely to go for the "arrest them because they are hackers" vs "thank them for showing us that we are screwing up" compared to Canadian companies.

Re:Medical records

[Mashiki]

Just remember that these governments want to control all of these databases of medical records, faces, biometrics. You can see how secure that is going to be.

Gotta get around the privacy laws first, and in Canada that's much more difficult then compared to the US or even the EU. Each one of those things fall into individual areas of privacy law, in turn no government body is legally allowed to connect any of those going in turn by the privacy act. Unlike the US and many US citizens who go lulz privacy, the laws are strict enough here that even companies like Facebook have bowed down to them.

Uploaded to youtube?

[sproketboy]

Why hack the video and not upload to youtube?

Re: Canada

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"If it was those back-bacon-eyes at the Bank of Canada, they would have arrested those kids!"

Re:The conferecing system hacker changed the passw

[dryeo]

It's Quebec, basically politics are split between the separatists and the pro-confederation people and there probably wasn't anything of interest said, if the listener could even understand the language.
Canada is different then the States, the Provincial political parties are often not associated with the Federal political parties.

Re:The conferecing system hacker changed the passw

[mi]

Have you really missed my point, or just pretend to have? Oh, well...

Re: Canada

[Coren22]

So would that poster be nationalist instead of racist? :)