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Taiwanese Police Give Cyber-security Quiz Winners Infected Devices (bbc.com)
Taiwan's national police agency said 54 of the flash drives it gave out at an event highlighting a government's cybercrime crackdown contained malware. From a report: The virus, which can steal personal data and has been linked to fraud, was added inadvertently, it said. The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) apologised for the error and blamed the mishap on a third-party contractor. It said 20 of the drives had been recovered. Around 250 flash drives were given out at the expo, which was hosted by Taiwan's Presidential Office from 11-15 December and aimed to highlight the government's determination to crack down on cybercrime.
"The virus, which can steal personal data and has been linked to fraud, was added inadvertently, "
They always say that.
watching the watchers?
This looks more like the CIB wanted to investigate people who were knowledgeable than just an accident
Slashdot is speechless! That's something...
firehouse burns down.
The quiz winners weren't so smart after all if they accepted electronic devices from a police agency.
sudo rm -r -f --no-preserve-root /
It was the secret final challenge. To win it, people had to refuse the offered flash drives.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
Surely this was just part of the test?
This has GOT to be a wake up call, people. WAKE THE FUCK UP!
The British were complaining "oh no! we're behind in CYBER! We need more CYBER talent!" and they proposed something like this. Hold some CYBERHACK challenge to recruit TALENTED CYBERS. Terribly sad and stupid.
The real purpose of these things (like DEFCON) is to draw all the lonely aspergs who do gay shit (like XSS "exploits") into revealing themselves en masse. Anybody who attends these CYBER events is a lonely dumbass who apparently can't detect a phishing attack in plain sight. Never hire these people.
To win it they had to repurpose the malware on the flash drive to point to THEIR servers, and then drop it back in the Taiwanese Police's parking lot to be picked up by an unwitting officer, whereup plugging it into his computer the Quiz Winner is given access to government databases they can use to thwart their rivals, or nosy police officers getting a bit too close to convicting them :)
.... and he is us.
- Walt Kelly
Have gnu, will travel.
do you think America's CIA and NSA are as honest?
"accident" my ass.
this is how those dirty chinks roll.
When you win something at a conference full of hackers, you take whatever prize they give you with a smile and then chuck it in the trash.
Years ago I had worked for the RI Sec. of State's office. It was housed in the sub-basement of the RI State House. We used to always think of ways to test information security - like getting a few USB sticks and printing the state seal on them and scattering them in the parking lots.
But of course cops being cops - they would pass out infected USB sticks to info-sec quiz winners.
I doubt this was deliberate: Don't blame malice on what can be explained as incompetence. This doesn't bode well for the state of the Taiwanese government's security though.
n/t