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  • West Unable To Stop Chinese "Volt Typhoon" CyberAttack Group

    From 186282@ud0s4.net@186283@ud0s4.net to talk.politics.misc,alt.security,alt.survival,alt.elections,alt.politics.usa on Friday, August 09, 2024 20:52:40
    From Newsgroup: alt.security

    https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/09/china-hacking-group-cybersecurity-00173454

    Cybersecurity experts working in the trenches, who are gathered
    in Las Vegas this week for the two largest hacking conferences
    of the year, say this massive effort to curb the attacks hasn’t
    made a dent.

    “Volt Typhoon is active to this day,” Sherrod DeGrippo, director
    of threat intelligence strategy at Microsoft, said on the sidelines
    of the BlackHat conference. “Have they stopped? Absolutely not.
    Will they stop? Doubt it.”

    That’s particularly worrying to the Biden administration
    given indications that China is readying itself to use
    cyberattacks against the U.S. if it ever decides to invade
    Taiwan, goes to war with the Philippines or if China feels
    the U.S. is sharply ramping up its military assistance to
    the self-governing island.

    . . .

    This is a particularly worrying group as it seems to
    be focused on attacking electronic infrastructure
    systems - which includes military and civilian. In
    short it's a de-facto branch of the PRC military.

    "Infrastructure" can include power plants, rail/traffic-
    control systems, water/waste-management systems and of
    concern things like chemical factories and such that can
    send up huge clouds of toxic smoke if process-control
    computers are compromised. Oh yea ... BANKING .....

    The "infrastructure" has a rather bad track record
    when it comes to protection against dedicated hacks.
    SO many have eliminated their IT people in favor
    of 'remote management' systems - ie 'cloud' admin.

    It's these 3rd-party apps which often provide the
    unrealized back-doors into customer systems. Might
    just shut 'em down - or MIGHT be designed to screw
    up a gigabuck worth of industrial machinery. Note
    the US govt used such a 'back door' to sabotage
    an Iranian uranium-enrichment plant some years
    ago ... ruined their equipment.

    So ... when a bunch of oil refineries explode and
    the pipelines rupture and the water stops and the
    lights go out and your phone/net stop and .......*

    Got one of those hand-crank disaster radios ?
    Get one - and note the reserved Civil Defense
    frequencies ...........
    --- Synchronet 3.21e-Win32 NewsLink 1.2
  • From Lucas McCain@Lucas_McCain@tutanato.com to talk.politics.misc,alt.security,alt.survival,alt.elections,alt.politics.usa on Friday, August 09, 2024 21:16:45
    From Newsgroup: alt.security

    On 8/9/2024 6:52 PM, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
    https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/09/china-hacking-group- cybersecurity-00173454

    Cybersecurity experts working in the trenches, who are gathered
    in Las Vegas this week for the two largest hacking conferences
    of the year, say this massive effort to curb the attacks hasn’t
    made a dent.

    “Volt Typhoon is active to this day,” Sherrod DeGrippo, director
    of threat intelligence strategy at Microsoft, said on the sidelines
    of the BlackHat conference. “Have they stopped? Absolutely not.
     Will they stop? Doubt it.”

    That’s particularly worrying to the Biden administration
    given indications that China is readying itself to use
    cyberattacks against the U.S. if it ever decides to invade
    Taiwan, goes to war with the Philippines or if China feels
    the U.S. is sharply ramping up its military assistance to
    the self-governing island.

    . . .

      This is a particularly worrying group as it seems to
      be focused on attacking electronic infrastructure
      systems - which includes military and civilian. In
      short it's a de-facto branch of the PRC military.

      "Infrastructure" can include power plants, rail/traffic-
      control systems, water/waste-management systems and of
      concern things like chemical factories and such that can
      send up huge clouds of toxic smoke if process-control
      computers are compromised. Oh yea ... BANKING .....

      The "infrastructure" has a rather bad track record
      when it comes to protection against dedicated hacks.
      SO many have eliminated their IT people in favor
      of 'remote management' systems - ie 'cloud' admin.

      It's these 3rd-party apps which often provide the
      unrealized back-doors into customer systems. Might
      just shut 'em down - or MIGHT be designed to screw
      up a gigabuck worth of industrial machinery. Note
      the US govt used such a 'back door' to sabotage
      an Iranian uranium-enrichment plant some years
      ago ... ruined their equipment.

    That was done by the Mossad, not the U.S. government.


      So ... when a bunch of oil refineries explode and
      the pipelines rupture and the water stops and the
      lights go out and your phone/net stop and .......*

    One might consider that automobiles could be targeted by malicious
    hackers. Tesla cars can be reprogrammed on the fly. They might
    suddenly behave in deadly ways and / or lock the driver and passengers
    in the car or go into self-driving mode with possible deadly
    consequences. I recall seeing a video of some high up Kremlin official
    who died in a fiery "accident" on a Moscow road during rush hour which
    was ruled a murder by the authorities.


      Got one of those hand-crank disaster radios ?
      Get one - and note the reserved Civil Defense
      frequencies ...........
    --
    You voted for student loan forgiveness. You got demographic replacement
    and World War 3.

    "Title 8, U.S.C. § 1324(a) defines several distinct offenses related to aliens. Subsection 1324(a)(1)(i)-(v) prohibits alien smuggling, domestic transportation of unauthorized aliens, concealing or harboring
    unauthorized aliens, encouraging or inducing unauthorized aliens to
    enter the United States, and engaging in a conspiracy or aiding and
    abetting any of the preceding acts. Subsection 1324(a)(2) prohibits
    bringing or attempting to bring unauthorized aliens to the United States
    in any manner whatsoever, even at a designated port of entry. Subsection 1324(a)(3)."

    “Western values mean three things: migration, LGBTQ, and war." Viktor Orban

    "There is no "democratic" government where all the governing officials
    are rich grifters, the multinational corporations and financial
    institutions control policy, and the will of the people is ignored,
    subverted through propaganda, or oppressed with lawfare and threats."

    Posted by: Belle | Jul 22 2024 14:51 utc on Moon of Alabama blog

    https://www.globalgulag.us
    --- Synchronet 3.21e-Win32 NewsLink 1.2
  • From vjp2.at@vjp2.at@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com to talk.politics.misc,alt.security,alt.survival,alt.elections,alt.politics.usa on Sunday, August 11, 2024 21:05:59
    From Newsgroup: alt.security

    Well, the original internet was peer-to-peer. YOur computer relayed messages from the computer on one side of you to the computer on the other side of
    you. Now, with cloud and hub and spoke, we have become one large mainframe centered in Carrollton Texas. This defeats the purpose of the "inter" net.

    Why are folks mad enough to let other people change their computers remotely?

    I have only one computer I use online, turn it off when I don't use it and
    only transfer files after I have scanned them.

    I was never a fan of Varoufakis but "cloud feudalism" sounds about right.
    --
    Vasos Panagiotopoulos panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm
    ---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
    --- Synchronet 3.21e-Win32 NewsLink 1.2
  • From 186282@ud0s4.net@186283@ud0s4.net to talk.politics.misc,alt.security,alt.survival,alt.elections,alt.politics.usa on Sunday, August 11, 2024 23:03:49
    From Newsgroup: alt.security

    On 8/11/24 5:05 PM, vjp2.at@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com wrote:
    Well, the original internet was peer-to-peer. YOur computer relayed messages from the computer on one side of you to the computer on the other side of you. Now, with cloud and hub and spoke, we have become one large mainframe centered in Carrollton Texas. This defeats the purpose of the "inter" net.


    A viable perspective. We're back to client-$erver again and
    the servers are too well-connected. Massive damage can be done
    with relatively small attacks.


    Why are folks mad enough to let other people change their computers remotely?

    1) Ignorance
    2) Laziness
    3) Idiocy

    We are well past the CP/M days where the entire system
    and All The Space You Would Ever Need all fit on an
    SS/SD floppy. Most users back then were also self-made
    experts ... now it's yer kinda-fuzzy Granny, or
    Gen-Z equivs, running the show.

    I have only one computer I use online, turn it off when I don't use it and only transfer files after I have scanned them.

    Wise.

    "Biz" and such doesn't have such luxuries however.
    Nobody turns off Amazon or M$ at 5pm.

    I was never a fan of Varoufakis but "cloud feudalism" sounds about right.

    That's a fair description of what we have now.
    Google WANTS to make it a GoogOcracy of course,
    but anti-trust laws keep getting in the way
    (so far). They'll need to buy a few more high
    govt officials ... if M$ doesn't beat them to it.

    This is a case where a 'simpler', more robust, OS
    has considerable value. Linux is fair - but getting
    more and more complex/incomprehensible - and there's
    always Unix. At relatively base functions level
    they're fairly secure. The more JUNK you add though ...

    Hey, you CAN run CP/M-86 in VirtualBox ! Some of
    the older Turbo Pascals had a CP/M disk so you can
    do some decent programming. Otherwise, Aztec 'C' :-)

    Up thru the Core-2-Quad you could also boot CP/M
    native - I had a disk.
    --- Synchronet 3.21e-Win32 NewsLink 1.2