Russian Group That Hacked DNC Used NSA Attack Code In Attack On Hotels (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A Russian government-sponsored group accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee last year has likely been infecting other targets of interest with the help of a potent Windows exploit developed by, and later stolen from, the National Security Agency, researchers said Friday. Eternal Blue, as the exploit is code-named, is one of scores of advanced NSA attacks that have been released over the past year by a mysterious group calling itself the Shadow Brokers. It was published in April in the group's most damaging release to date. Its ability to spread from computer to computer without any user action was the engine that allowed the WCry ransomware worm, which appropriated the leaked exploit, to shut down computers worldwide in May. Eternal Blue also played a role in the spread of NotPetya, a follow-on worm that caused major disruptions in June. Now, researchers at security firm FireEye say they're moderately confident the Russian hacking group known as Fancy Bear, APT 28, and other names has also used Eternal Blue, this time in a campaign that targeted people of interest as they connected to hotel Wi-Fi networks. In July, the campaign started using Eternal Blue to spread from computer to computer inside various staff and guest networks, company researchers Lindsay Smith and Ben Read wrote in a blog post. While the researchers didn't directly observe those attacks being used to infect guest computers connected to the network, they said a related campaign from last year used the control of hotel Wi-Fi services to obtain login credentials from guest devices.

Comments

Re:Demoncrats lost their sense of humor

[Bartles]

Strong Analysis supporting this claim. It was an inside leak. This is pretty close to damning evidence. Compare it to the evidence supplied by the IC pinning it on Russia.

FTFY

[s.petry]

Strong Analysis supporting this claim. It was an inside leak. This is pretty close to damning evidence. Compare it to the evidence supplied by the Democratic Leadership in charge of the IC pinning it on Russia.

I don't support Russia, or anything associated with the authoritarian regime of Russia and it's leadership. That does not mean I simply accept allegations that "Russia did it" for everything the Democrats and Democratic Party's praetorian guard media wants to claim either.

Is it possible that Russia had something to do with the breach? Sure, it's also possible an insider fed up with the corruption is responsible for the breach. I have yet to see compelling evidence pinning any of these breaches on Russia. I have yet to see anything in the way of anecdotal evidence that would lead to a compelling "Russia did it" either. What I have seen is a whole lot of claims which don't stand up to basic scrutiny.

We have a paid-for DNC report from a private company making the claim being repeated by Democratic politicians as "fact". Yet a request by the FBI to investigate the server being denied by the DNC. If they are so sure, why didn't they let the largest Federal Law Enforcement agency investigate for validation?

Maybe it was Russia. Show us the evidence (not an allegation made by a company paid by the DNC) and I'll be right on board with bitching about them nasty Russians. There is enough dirty with the DNC and politicians from the last administration that people _should_ be skeptical until such evidence is provided. (If you don't think anything is dirty, you are not even trying and rational discourse is impossible. Colluding to oust Sanders, Lynch on the tarmac, Comey's actions, Huma Abedin, and Wasserman Shultz are easy, but not only subjects for you to read about. )