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FBI Seizes Control of Russian Botnet (thedailybeast.com)
The Daily Beast reports that the FBI has seized control of a key server in the Kremlin's global botnet of 500,000 hacked routers. "The move positions the bureau to build a comprehensive list of victims of the attack, and short-circuits Moscow's ability to reinfect its targets," writes Kevin Poulsen. From the report: The FBI counter-operation goes after "VPN Filter," a piece of sophisticated malware linked to the same Russian hacking group, known as Fancy Bear, that breached the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 election. On Wednesday security researchers at Cisco and Symantec separately provided new details on the malware, which has turned up in 54 countries including the United States.
VPN Filter uses known vulnerabilities to infect home office routers made by Linksys, MikroTik, NETGEAR, and TP-Link. Once in place, the malware reports back to a command-and-control infrastructure that can install purpose-built plug-ins, according to the researchers. One plug-in lets the hackers eavesdrop on the victim's Internet traffic to steal website credentials; another targets a protocol used in industrial control networks, such as those in the electric grid. A third lets the attacker cripple any or all of the infected devices at will.
VPN Filter uses known vulnerabilities to infect home office routers made by Linksys, MikroTik, NETGEAR, and TP-Link. Once in place, the malware reports back to a command-and-control infrastructure that can install purpose-built plug-ins, according to the researchers. One plug-in lets the hackers eavesdrop on the victim's Internet traffic to steal website credentials; another targets a protocol used in industrial control networks, such as those in the electric grid. A third lets the attacker cripple any or all of the infected devices at will.
He'll shut this FBI operation down immediately. Putin is not going to be happy and the last thing Trump wants is an upset boss.
I have a home home router not a home office router. My home office is connected via a hub to the intenets.
"Spy Gate" is Donald Trump's collusion with Russian spies during their attacks on our country.
Treason.
Actually, it was already ridiculous, but the idea they are saying they seized a botnet infected wifi router in the fight against Trump is just fucking absurd.
Captain Ahab was so utterly consumed by hate that he was ready to lose everything, his ship, his crew, his own life, just as long as he killed Moby-Dick.
Similarly, conservatives are so completely and utterly infused and consumed by their hatred of liberals that they are ready to sacrifice everything, their country, their family, the future of their planet and their children, for every opportunity to piss-off and otherwise hurt that damn liberal white whale.
they're gonna do what they can to push back. The FBI is not run by idiots, even if the rest of the country is.
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And arrest the criminal Putin.
I wonder if the Russian trolls get in trouble for talking to people that call for Chechnya to be free.
The number one Router Flaw is people leaving the fucking default L/P on the device.
Step down FBI. You are getting in over your heads.
Liberate Chechnya and Dagastan.
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I don't think anyone can say for sure it was Russia. It could have been Jy-na.
5 guilty pleas, 17 indictments of people close to Trump?
> Did they ever release any actual evidence the Russians hacked the DNC?
They released the CrowdStrike report which said they think it was a Russian APT based on various signatures, such as an old copy of Ukranian malware called P.A.S. and a bunch of tor exit nodes, which they presented but failed to identify. They later retracted some of their claims. The DNC did not at any time turn over the affected servers to the FBI or anyone else, as one might expect for such a serious crime as was alleged.
Then the ODNI released the "17 agencies" report that doesn't present any technical info at all, just a few conclusions.
Somewhere in here we have that story about the "mystery server" where they think a Trump server (actually a 3rd party marketing site) is talking to a Russian bank. It turns out to be DNS traffic due to spam, but it's funny to look at now given the #Spygate allegations.
Then there were reports from Trend Micro including this one. There's a lot there about phishing and such, but not a whole lot about how to identify who this is other than "we think this is Russia."
Of course, then comes the Vault 7 leaks showing the CIA (likely among many others) has lots of tools to falsely attribute stuff to other parties. A person was later blamed for that leak, but they instead find that he's a pedophile which is... interesting. One may or may not be aware of a short-lived attempt by the "Todd & Claire" site to frame Julian Assange of that which melted under public scrutiny. There were also the infamous Guccifer 2.0 "Russian fingerprints" which seemed interesting, as he only dropped random Trump opposition research docs.
He should have nothing to fear.
You think *Trump* will be pissed about a botnet being offline? Why exactly?
Even if you believe the line being peddled Trump and the Russians had any connection (long since disproven by Trumps antagonizing moves towards Russia, if you really want something interesting look to Trump and China...) remember it wasn't any bot net that got into the DNC, it was phishing and social engineering...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So the NSA knew a lot about them and their deep links to the FSB.
https://arstechnica.com/inform...
The political documents walked out. They did not get moved out by a "network".
"Former NSA experts say it wasn’t a hack at all, but a leak" (Aug 9, 2017)
https://www.thenation.com/arti...
"... demonstrating that 23 MB/s is a typical transfer rate when using a USB–2 flash device (thumb drive).”"
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
There are a few tricks played in that article. One, it doesn't matter whether Podesta himself did or didn't deny anything, it actually matters what analysis the FBI did and whether the FBI got anything.
Two, the FBI relied on the CrowdStrike report and doesn't appear to have done any actual analysis of them. If they have HD images, it's weird that they don't just say so ("forensics" is rather vague, though it plausibly includes such) and it's sort of odd they didn't want to inspect the hardware for tampering, given that we, in fact, know of various durable hardware rootkits via the TAO catalog. You know, something we might expect a hostile foreign government to be using, given it's the sort of stuff we use when hacking them. This would actually make sense--use an advanced rootkit to actually exfiltrate data and then hide it by doing some low-grade phishing attack to explain the leaked data. But we can be quite sure that isn't what happened given that they have had so long to allege such a thing and they haven't. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, regarding this comes out in the upcoming OIG report, though.
Also, from your own article:
Explain this to me: why doesn't the Obama CIA care about Russians hacking the DNC? Is it going to be like the claim that they used Stephan Halper as an informant to "protect" the Trump campaign (their words, not mine)? If they're there to "protect" them, why not put one in Hillary's campaign as "protection" after telling us over and over that she's being targeted by Russians?
FBI is to report the surveillance data on Trump to the Republicans (i.e. Nunes), who then selectively leaks anything that might help Trump.
So FBI might *wish* this is true, but it certainly isn't perfect.
Nunes, for example, tried to interview the pee memo author *before* the FBI to pre-emptively tip off Trump. He's doing full on witness tampering at this point.
Also, can I point out the obvious?
1) Trump has a habit of attending meetings via phone, even when he's in the same building as a powerplay.
2) Trump is terrified the FBI spied on his phone during meetings with the Russians and the Saudis and others.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out he was phone conferenced into those meetings.
Hence Nunes is demanding the FBI report all surveillance data on Trump to GOP, and Nunes will tip off Trump if they have any of his phone logs, who in turns can make a suitable fake cover story.
Cohens payoff to the Russian hackers also isn't verified....
Yet.
If FBI have Cohen surveillance data, then everyone from Trump, Hannity, that Prince, the GOP fundraiser (forget his name, the one who paid his GF to have an abortion), all of them are facing jail time.
If you don't understand how it worked, Cohen is a money launderer. He receives money people are not supposed to have (e.g. bribes, payoffs, tax dodging), and pays their bills with that money (e.g. hookers, bribes to others, property deal laundering to white cash).
If FBI spied on Cohen, then a lot of powerful people are facing some serious jail time, and 'collusion' is the least of their worries....
Better hope it stays 'unverified'.
Get control of the latest hacked Photoshop. :-\
There was no Russian meddling. The FBI is lying again. ae911truth dot org
Last time I checked, Debbie Wasserman Schultz refused to hand over the hacked server to the FBI. They instead asked CloudStrike to look it over and do an analysis. Further, the speed at which the e-mails were removed from the server could only have been accomplished with directly attached storage (USB attached flash drive is the current best guess)... Then The e-mails started being published by WikiLeaks. After Seth Rich died in the non-robbery, Julianne Assange has put all kinds of message out about the fact that he was murdered. Seems pretty simple to me.
The FBI is not known for its stunning competence.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Justin, of @berniesanders fame on Steemit who admitted to using a botnet to take down other people's web sites.
Justice may be delayed but generally arrives.
Yep, just after Trump ends up in jail for high treason for colluding with a foreign ennemy.
God you trumptards are pathetic.
Oh /. never change. or wait, please do change your easily manipulated voting system.
It wasn't "Fancy Bear" that breached the DNC, his name was Seth Rich.
We hear the same broken record again and again. What proof was ever provided that this is "kremlin" (government) owned botnet? Intelligence proof that can not be disclosed isn't counted, because governments and three letter agencies are known to routinely lie.
Only 499,000 to go.
Latest BS unsupported by evidence, laughable to any credible IT guy.