Access To Major Airport's Security System Offered on Dark Web for $10 (axios.com)

Researchers at McAfee found remote access to a major airport's security system available on the dark web for $10. From a report: The hacked access came from an online market for remote desktop protocol (RDP) accounts, which sell access to hacked accounts in all kinds of systems. "There's a lot of discussion about sophisticated nation-state attacks, but this was a really cheap way anyone could get access to something," Raj Samani, chief scientist at McAfee, told Axios. The RDP market isn't typically about purchasing access to systems to actually use the systems. Instead, buyers pay between $3 and $19 for access to machines based on bandwidth. Those systems are often used for their resources rather than their information.

Comments

Not too surprised

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Call me "not surprised" after passing umpteen machines in the security line with unprotected USB slots. One good boot and...

Re:Not too surprised

[dgatwood]

Call me "not surprised" after passing umpteen machines in the security line with unprotected USB slots. One good boot and...

Next up: Girls Gone Wild, Airport Edition. See topless teens as only millimeter-wave scanners can see them. See gregarious grandmas with guns. And everything in between.

The only way to prevent people from seeing naked pictures of yourself is to never allow them to be taken in the first place. This includes the scanners at the airport.

Re:Not too surprised

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

TSA computers. The Compaq-looking things frequently plugged in with the stack of 4-6 USB slots facing outside the security area (so the TSA folks see the pretty faceplates and blinky-blink lights).

Re:GPL - Intellectual Theft?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure if you're joking, but here goes:

If you don't distribute your software outside of your company (e.g. by publishing it on a webpage for the public to download, or selling it to some other companies), then you do not need to give away the source code. That is written in the GPL.

Anything compiled with GCC or clang compiler can still be kept under a closed-source license, you do not need to give the source code away.

Your lawyer is wrong.

Source: I am a lawyer.

Re:$10? For $5 I can tell about updateing there sy

[Desler]

For 5 dollars can we buy you spelling and grammar lessons?

The economics are interesting

[fyngyrz]

Here's what interests me. If this data is available for $10, then we're given a feel for how many customers are needed to buy it to make any serious cash.

Presuming that all the state actors buy the data (and I do so presume... if they don't, they're being really, really stupid), that's a couple hundred right there. Then there are corporations, perhaps... can't imagine there would be many taking the risk, but... and the individual crazies.

Doesn't seem all that economically beneficial to the seller.

Someone else have a different take?

Our civilization is a house of cards

[Rick Schumann]

Do I really need to explain this at this point?

Re:Our civilization is a house of cards

[gweihir]

It is not news either. It is just becoming much more obvious in the Internet age.

Re:Our civilization is a house of cards

[Rick Schumann]

What I mean is in the more immediate sense than that, foreign operatives, terroists, and criminal organizations now apparently have everything they need to break into anything they want and nothing is stopping them.

Probably more than they spent on security

[gweihir]

I do mean on effective security, not all that worthless "compliance" bullshit.