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State Govts. Warned of Malware-Laden CD Sent Via Snail Mail from China
Here's a timely reminder that email isn't the only vector for phishing attacks: Several U.S. state and local government agencies have reported receiving strange letters via snail mail that include malware-laden compact discs (CDs) apparently sent from China, KrebsOnSecurity has learned.
This particular ruse, while crude and simplistic, preys on the curiosity of recipients who may be enticed into popping the CD into a computer. According to a non-public alert shared with state and local government agencies by the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), the scam arrives in a Chinese postmarked envelope and includes a "confusingly worded typed letter with occasional Chinese characters."
Please insert in election computer.
Also at TechCrunch and Engadget.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday July 31 2018, @01:29PM (13 children)
I hate that government more and more all the time.
Sure, the USA might be bad, but we're angels compared to China.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday July 31 2018, @01:32PM (2 children)
China and Russia's values are the guiding light to which the current US administration aspires to attain.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday July 31 2018, @01:56PM (1 child)
Getting along with Russia, getting along with China and others is a good thing, not a bad thing. I’ve said that many times, for many years. Xi Jinping is a competitor. And a good competitor he is. And I think the word "competitor" is a compliment. Some folks think it’s China, they say, "oh, Chinese postmark!" I'll ask President Xi, is it China? I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2018, @05:13PM
You've also said "Oh Vladimir, don't cum in my mouth" many times, yet you still drop to your knees every time he asks.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday July 31 2018, @02:57PM
Angels compared to China? It all depends on how you measure angelic and/or demonic.
Yeah, I'll rank the US higher than China on most things, but we have to consider that I'm a westerner, and not an Asian.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2018, @03:51PM (2 children)
I am certain that nobody else except China has done this before. Well, and Russia. Probably Russian incel hackers put them up to it. They should be careful. The compact discs (they tell me this is abbreviated as "CDs") might have also been infested with Novichok!
In fact, let me make sure to get my +5 buff against lizard people by calling the true name [wikipedia.org] of a Kenyan Moslem. Maybe even Baraq Hussein Soretoro was involved.
(I'm not sure, but bolding the true name may extend the buff to 7 hours.)
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 01 2018, @03:51AM (1 child)
Lizardmen are weak against ice-type magic. You don't need to buff, really, just recruit someone who can cast a decently powerful Bufudyne spell and you're good to go.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 01 2018, @01:09PM
Well, if you're minmaxing it makes sense to spend a skill point or two to get the true name knowledge for the additional buff. What class would true name knowledge fit under? Priest? Druid? Mage? I suppose it could be in the skill tree for all 3. Mage is compelling due to the occult nature of true names.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2018, @03:58PM
So I think this may be used by USA to enforce some mail-tampering acts. That's how it's done, now all of these "I-hate-china" people will happily welcome some hooknoses to put their noses into citizen's envelopes :).
This group just seems to have no wide access to design-level in-hardware backdoors like USA has. According to some security researchers (Creator of virut botnet for example) there are intentionally planted bugs into Intel chips since Coppermine core. This is Pentium III. Of course simultaneously IT education goes nuts to make programmers (programmers... without basics of maths, electronics and computer architecture!) write obese junk instead of code as backdoored chips must be used somewhere.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday July 31 2018, @04:36PM
Why? I don't see the problem here. I think people should happily insert these CDs into their computers, and if this causes all kinds of havoc, then they got what they deserved.
If you're running an OS that can be compromised by merely inserting an optical disc into the drive, you're doing something very, very wrong, and you deserve whatever happens to you.
(Hint: any OS that auto-runs anything from removable media is not an OS that you can trust with any important data.)
As for China, should you be more critical of someone who tells someone "please stand here calmly while I punch you in the face" and then does so, or should you be more critical of the idiot who actually willingly stands there and allows themselves to be punched? Personally, I'm more critical of the latter. Abject stupidity should never be excused.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2018, @05:22PM
-1 hate speech
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2018, @08:16PM
Hell yeah! We just bomb our enemies straight up instead of selling plastic sh#t to them. Oh there weren't any WMDs? Honest mistake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 31 2018, @08:59PM
China doesn't think much better about you either. And they're just as morally self-righteous as Americans are. And with a chip on their shoulder for being "oppressed" by everyone else.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday August 01 2018, @12:05AM
Umm.. didn't Sony BMG do something similar as well?
Yea on the surface China is a lot worse than the US, but if you squint hard enough it is just a different kind of evil to the world. To their respective citizens they're likely better off than someone else, but tinted glass and all that.