from the coming-to-an-internet-near-you-if-it-all-goes-wrong dept.
Ukraine targeted by almost 800 cyberattacks since the war started:
Ukrainian government and private sector organizations have been the target of 796 cyberattacks since the start of the war on February 24, 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.
According to Ukraine's cybersecurity defense and security agency SSSCIP (State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection), the country's networks have been under a constant barrage of hacking attempts since the war started.
"Enemy hackers continue to attack Ukraine. The intensity of cyberattacks has not decreased since the beginning of Russia's full-scale military invasion, although their quality has been declining," SSSCIP said on Thursday.
The country's government and local authorities, as well as its defense organizations, are the key sectors that have been targeted the most during the first months of the war, in a total of 281 attacks.
The list of industry sectors heavily impacted by cyberattacks also includes the financial, telecom, infrastructure, and energy sectors.
Most of the attacks detected by Ukraine's cybersecurity defense agency were focused on information harvesting (242 incidents), while the rest aimed to breach, take down, or infect targeted systems with malware.
[...] The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) also observed threat groups linked to the GRU, SVR, and FSB Russian intelligence services (e.g., APT28, Sandworm, Gamaredon, EnergeticBear, Turla, DEV-0586, and UNC2452/2652) intensifying their attacks against Ukraine and its allies starting with March 2022.
Burt also highlighted a direct link between Russian-backed cyberattacks and Russia's military operations, with the timing of hacking attempts closely matching that of missile strikes and sieges coordinated by Russia's army.
"MSTIC has detected Russian network intrusion efforts on 128 targets in 42 countries outside Ukraine," Smith said.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by canopic jug on Saturday July 02 2022, @06:54PM (3 children)
Ok. It's a bullshit article, from a bullshit site (Bleeping Computer), quoting bullshit data (from M$). In other words, it's M$ all the way down.
There's no answer to my question there, if they were only targeted or actually both targeted and breached. However, since microsofters conflate attacks with successful breaches, mostly due to them being synonymous in practice when it comes to M$ products, I would have to guess that they really mean 800 breaches. This whole thing should be under the heading "Windows Total Cost of Ownership" and it is causing problems for Ukraine, Europe as whole, and the world at large. The faster they eliminate the microsofters still roaming their country on free foot, the sooner they can rip out the defective products and restore a functional infrastructure based on GNU/Linux and BSD. Neither of those are perfect, nor are the services which run upon them. However, they are so many order of magnitude better that "breach" and "attack" are certainly not synonymous.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday July 02 2022, @09:57PM (1 child)
More generally-speaking, always remember where you're reading anything politically-charged from and who wrote it.
Here you're reading an article written by, reported by, concerning data provided by companies in the US. The US has an interest in spinning anti-Russia stories (aka propaganda), companies in the US are famously taking orders from the US government, and US media outlets are hardly more trustworthy than Russian or Chinese ones.
In other words, in times of war, take anything you read with a massive grain of salt. As far as I'm concerned, those 800 cyberattacks may well be 80 or 8 for all I know.
(Score: 1, Troll) by canopic jug on Sunday July 03 2022, @03:00AM
In other words, in times of war, take anything you read with a massive grain of salt. As far as I'm concerned, those 800 cyberattacks may well be 80 or 8 for all I know.
Of course. Whether 8, 80, 800, or 8,000 the question remains if those were actual breaches or just some army of Windows bots testing the doorknobs. With M$ products they are the same thing, and thus conflated by Bleeping Computer and other M$ propaganda sites. With real systems, they are not the same. So knowing the answer to the question might show how badly Windows has penetrated into Ukraine. Conversely knowing how badly M$ Windows has penetrated into Ukraine might give some answer to the question:
Looking at just the desktop / client side, if one counts all type of client devices including mobile devices, then around 51% of devices in Ukraine are afflicted with M$ Windows [statcounter.com], according to Statcounter. If you take out mobile devices, then Statcounter shows that over 88% of desktop and laptop systems in Ukraine are afflicted [statcounter.com] and thus vulnerable to scores of point-and-click automated methods for full breach and compromise. The only cure there is the elimination of the M$ products from the field, and the only way for that is the elimination of the microsofters first. Since as you point out it is a time of war, the Ukrainians have more options for that than just showing them the door.
As an aside, looking at other countries, it looks like Turkey is preparing for battle, presumably against Europe once again. They have trimmed the M$ Windows presence down to just barely over 10% [statcounter.com] according to the same source.
However, the bad news for everyone is that Android and iOS usage is way up all around in every country. Those are about as bad for national, and personal, security as M$ Windows has been.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jb on Sunday July 03 2022, @08:10AM
Simple solution. If America is genuine about supporting Ukraine in this conflict, they should arrest Microsoft's entire board of directors for aiding & abetting Russian espionage, then ship the whole lot of them off to Gitmo, indefinitely.
In the absence of such a strong, unequivocal message, dodgy software mongers like Microsoft will continue to ship utter garbage, indefinitely.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday July 02 2022, @07:09PM (6 children)
Let's put all of our infrastructure under the control of a few central computers. What could go wrong, right?
I could wish that governments around the world are watching, and learning, but that would be too much to ask. Worse, if Ukraine beats back some or all of the attacks, fools will see an internet connected computer control infrastructure as somehow justified.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 03 2022, @12:13AM (5 children)
I have the same argument about the Supreme Court. Now it's broken, we're all fucked. Great system ya got there, America.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 03 2022, @02:26AM
Supreme court is working as intended. Which ruling to you consider to be broken?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 03 2022, @02:32AM
Why do people like you love to show your stupidity? Current SCOTUS is doing exactly what the US Constitution said they should do.
Why do you hate the US Constitution? Are you just one of those mind-controlled idiots who suck the AP teat?
You believe that current SCOTUS "reversed a woman's constitutional right to an abortion"??? Please show me where that is in the Constitution / Bill of Rights.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 03 2022, @01:51PM (2 children)
How would you suggest decentralizing the Supreme Court?
(Score: 2) by jb on Monday July 04 2022, @03:50AM (1 child)
How about having the US Supreme Court hear only every second case in the queue, with the rest going before the Judicial Committee of Her Majesty's Privy Council instead?
I understand the Law Lords have been rather bored since losing their status as Great Britain's highest appellate jurisdiction a few years back, so why not toss them half the issues of an ailing colony to help sort out -- sounds like good fun...
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday July 05 2022, @11:36AM
Unlikely to be accepted. But somewhat decentralized.