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'Vigilante Hackers' Strike Routers In Russia and Iran, Reports Motherboard (vice.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the Cisco-kids dept.

An anonymous reader quotes Motherboard: On Friday, a group of hackers targeted computer infrastructure in Russia and Iran, impacting internet service providers, data centres, and in turn some websites. "We were tired of attacks from government-backed hackers on the United States and other countries," someone in control of an email address left in the note told Motherboard Saturday... "We simply wanted to send a message...." In addition to disabling the equipment, the hackers left a note on affected machines, according to screenshots and photographs shared on social media: "Don't mess with our elections," along with an image of an American flag...

In a blog post Friday, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky said the attack was exploiting a vulnerability in a piece of software called Cisco Smart Install Client. Using computer search engine Shodan, Talos (which is part of Cisco) said in its own blog post on Thursday it found 168,000 systems potentially exposed by the software. Talos also wrote it observed hackers exploiting the vulnerability to target critical infrastructure, and that some of the attacks are believed to be from nation-state actors...

Reuters reported that Iran's IT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi said the attack mainly impacted Europe, India, and the U.S.... The hackers said they did scan many countries for the vulnerable systems, including the U.K., U.S., and Canada, but only "attacked" Russia and Iran, perhaps referring to the post of an American flag and their message. They claimed to have fixed the Cisco issue on exposed devices in the US and UK "to prevent further attacks... As a result of our efforts, there are almost no vulnerable devices left in many major countries," they claimed in an email.
Their image of the American flag was a black-and-white drawing done with ASCII art.

5 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Undecided by Ensign_Expendable · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Part of me wants to cheer and the other part says things like this aren't helping.

    1. Re:Undecided by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Part of me wants to cheer and the other part says things like this aren't helping.

      The second part of you is correct. These actions are counter-productive. Russia and Iran both have closed paranoid cultures that play up their victimhood at the hands of the West. But that belief is not monolithic, and there are factions in both countries that want more openness, tolerance, and trust in the international system. These vigilante actions weaken these people while strengthening the paranoid hardliners.

      In fact, these actions play so smoothly into the hands of the hardliners, that we shouldn't dismiss the possibility that it is a false flag operation.

    2. Re:Undecided by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Part of me wants to cheer and the other part says things like this aren't helping.

      The second part of you is correct. These actions are counter-productive. Russia and Iran both have closed paranoid cultures that play up their victimhood at the hands of the West.

      Government ordered cyber offensives designed to change the leadership of a country are an act of war.

      Acts of war cannot be ignored. That alone is a reason Trump should be impeached, since he is not doing his damn job. (If anyone can point to a real plan to stop this shit from happening again, or even serious progress...?)

      Now, do vigilante actions help? Probably not, since the scale is likely only big enough to be used internally as propaganda. A response, if given must cause enough pain that the aggressor is hesitant to do it again.

      The people that keep Putin in power, are likely the targets that must be convinced. Block all exports to their companies and subsidiaries. Block all imports to the same. Get others to do the same. Do everything you can to put severe pressure on Putin to back off. I'm fine if some of it causes problems with America, as long as the point gets made and understood.

    3. Re:Undecided by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Government ordered cyber offensives designed to change the leadership of a country are an act of war.

      Espionage and covert activities are a normal part of government relations. Saying Russian ads on Facebook are an "act of war" is absurd.

      Acts of war cannot be ignored.

      Why not?

      That alone is a reason Trump should be impeached, since he is not doing his damn job.

      Declaring war is a congressional responsibility.

      If anyone can point to a real plan to stop this shit from happening again, or even serious progress...?

      Here's my plan: Improve education in America so we have fewer people stupid enough to believe nonsense posted on Facebook.

  2. ASCII art by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Their image of the American flag was a black-and-white drawing done with ASCII art.

    What really troubles me about this is the choice of image format used to save the screenshot of the ASCII art. Why are people still using JPEG for non-photographic images in 2018?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook