Slashdot Mirror
FBI Investigating Russian Hack Of New York Times Reporters, Others (cnn.com)
Hackers thought to be working for Russian intelligence have carried out a series of cyber breaches targeting reporters at the New York Times and other U.S. news organizations, reports CNN, citing US officials briefed on the matter. From the report: The intrusions, detected in recent months, are under investigation by the FBI and other US security agencies. Investigators so far believe that Russian intelligence is likely behind the attacks and that Russian hackers are targeting news organizations as part of a broader series of hacks that also have focused on Democratic Party organizations, the officials said. "Like most news organizations we are vigilant about guarding against attempts to hack into our systems," said New York Times Co. spokeswoman Eileen Murphy. "There are a variety of approaches we take up to and including working with outside investigators and law enforcement. We won't comment on any specific attempt to gain unauthorized access to The Times." The breaches targeting reporters and news organizations are part of an apparent surge in cyber attacks in the past year against entities beyond US government agencies.
Yes, the Russian intelligence services have the best interests of democracy and the United States at heart!
Note to nimbius: look up the term "useful idiot".
So...it's NSA's fault when foreign intelligence services conduct espionage against US political parties, media organizations, etc., and actively try to influence the outcomes of US elections, and manipulate the opinions of US citizens?
You ask as if this is a rhetorical question with the answer no. Which group has been consistently in opposition to proper security of crypto systems? Which group managed to corrupt the IPSEC standard with needless complexity to the level that it never got implemented? Which group has been consistently holding vulnerabilities against American products (CISCO routers!!!?!!??) let alone non US products used by American companies.
Most of all, which group has been openly and gratuitously using hacking techniques which should have been kept back for war time? At the same time allowing attacks on US and allied interests? Who the hell thought it was a good idea to take the credit for hacking Iranian Nuclear systems when it could easily have been blamed on the Chinese?
If the NSA had been doing it's job of protecting US systems against foreign attack, of making sure US and Allied commercial systems were safe from Chinese and Russian attacks, and of making sure that that every single vulnerability in widely used systems like Windows was being patched or the producers were being kicked out DoD procurement then there is no chance that the current hacking attacks would have the scale or the danger that the do now.
Speaking as a Brit, even our shitty intelligence services, the kind which seem to have to spend plenty of their time intimidating journalists doing their jobs and still leave us with a 80% Chinese controlled, 95% Windows dominated abomination of a communications infrastructure and still leave Radicals running around our Mosques corrupting the muslim youth, even these people seem to do a better job than the NSA. When was the last time you heard GCHQ hinting loudly through all their friends about their latest successful virus attack?
Demand the NSA start to do their job.