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The Yahoo Hackers Weren't State-Sponsored, Security Firm Says (csoonline.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the jump-to-conclusions dept.

itwbennett writes from a report via CSO Online: After Yahoo raised eyebrows in the security community with its claim that state-sponsored hackers were responsible for the history-making breach, security firm InfoArmor now says it has evidence to the contrary. InfoArmor claims to have acquired some of the stolen information as part of its investigation into "Group E," a team of five professional hackers-for-hire believed to be from Eastern Europe. The database that InfoArmor has contains only "millions" of accounts, but it includes the users' login IDs, hashed passwords, mobile phone numbers and zip codes, said Andrew Komarov, InfoArmor's chief intelligence officer. Earlier this week, Chase Cunningham, director of cyber operations at security provider A10 Networks, called Yahoo's claim of state-sponsored actors a convenient, if trumped up, excuse: "If I want to cover my rear end and make it seem like I have plausible deniability, I would say 'nation-state actor' in a heartbeat." "Yahoo was compromised in 2014 by a group of professional blackhats who were hired to compromise customer databases from a variety of different targeted organizations," Scottsdale, Arizona-based InfoArmor said Wednesday in a report. "The Yahoo data leak as well as the other notable exposures, opens the door to significant opportunities for cyber-espionage and targeted attacks to occur."

6 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Pretty Bold-Faced Lie by speedplane · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If it's true that Yahoo had no evidence to suggest a state sponsored attack, then Marissa Meyers should issue an official apology. They are inserting themselves in geopolitics purely for their own financial gain. Sickening.

    --
    Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
  2. No Bear code? by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    So no trace of the smart Bear, skilled Bear, deceptive Bear or deep network Bear code?
    Give the contractors time, later some ip rage, code fragment or just a timezone will be found showing Bear related entry and vast undetected plain text data flows.
    Is work day timezone data flows to some distant nation not proof? Their gov works 9 to 5 so any data moved within their timezone at that time is proof enough....
    National ip range logs at anytime over the months? Just one national ip needs to be found?

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    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  3. How would they know? by ron_ivi · · Score: 3, Informative

    Considering dozens of Intel agencies buy from black-hat groups ---- and they're good at buying stuff under pseudonyms ---- how would anyone know if they were state sponsored or not?

    1. Re:How would they know? by bloodhawk · · Score: 2

      The only way you would know is if the state sponsoring them actually came clean and told you. I would seriously doubt even the hackers themselves would know who they are working for.

  4. State-Sponsored Attack == OMG Don't Blame Us by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Of course. 'State-sponsored attacks' have been peddled by the media long enough as a huge doomsday thing that the corporate PR people have realized that everyone will give a pass to any poor company besieged by such a massive, unstoppable attacker. Couldn't have been helped, nosireee.

    Of course state attackers *are* extremely powerful and dangerous -- but companies have already clued in that blaming them is a free pass from the public for shoddy security.

  5. Dog ate my homework? by erp_consultant · · Score: 2

    This "State Sponsored Hackers" thing is now the new "Dog ate my homework" lie. I guess it's better than, you know, telling the truth. But I suppose if she ever had to testify over it then it would be a bunch of take the 5th and "I don't recall".