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In his career-ending extramarital affair that came to light in 2012, General David Petraeus used a stealthy technique to communicate with his lover Paula Broadwell: the pair left messages for each other in the drafts folder of a shared Gmail account. Now hackers have learned the same trick. Only instead of a mistress, they’re sharing their love letters with data-stealing malware buried deep on a victim’s computer.
Here’s how the attack worked in the case Shape observed: The hacker first set up an anonymous Gmail account, then infected a computer on the target’s network with malware. (Shape declined to name the victim of the attack.) After gaining control of the target machine, the hacker opened their anonymous Gmail account on the victim’s computer in an invisible instance of Internet Explorer—IE allows itself to be run by Windows programs so that they can seamlessly query web pages for information, so the user has no idea a web page is even open on the computer.
With the Gmail drafts folder open and hidden, the malware is programmed to use a Python script to retrieve commands and code that the hacker enters into that draft field. The malware responds with its own acknowledgments in Gmail draft form, along with the target data it’s programmed to exfiltrate from the victim’s network. All the communication is encoded to prevent it being spotted by intrusion detection or data-leak prevention. The use of a reputable web service instead of the usual IRC or HTTP protocols that hackers typically use to command their malware also helps keep the hack hidden.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday October 30 2014, @01:01AM
It's a security risk. If Joey Average is getting some on the side isn't really a matter of national security but when people in a position such as General Petraeus position steps out then it does matter. Extra-marital affairs is, for most people and in most cultures, morally wrong and for that reason a possible source of blackmail. Hence it's a security risk associated with it and not something that can or should be tolerated or allowed. He should quite frankly have known better.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday October 30 2014, @08:10PM
There's nothing morally wrong with extramarital sex, and more importantly, most people do it (including cheating on their partners after marriage). You can't expect someone not to do something the vast majority of the population does; it's an absurdly high standard, and one that needs to be eliminated. What people do in their private lives is none of the government's business. If this kind of thing is such a problem in the military (and the military is infamous for cheating because of deployments), then maybe they shouldn't allow anyone to have a monogamous marriage in the military, and should only allow open marriages. It's kinda hard to blackmail someone if their spouse already knows they have another lover.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday October 31 2014, @06:33PM
You might not want to believe it but if you want to do some kinda of work involving secrets, security or have a security clearance job then it is a problem.
For most people this isn't an issue and you might not think that stepping out on your wife (or husband) is a moral problem, but it is. If you want to work in the business and at the same time having lots of extra-martial affairs or some extravagant sexual lifestyle then it is a problem, just as having a drinking problem, a drug problem, a gambling problem or being knee deep in debt is. They are all big nono:s since they make you a security risk and open you up to easy blackmail. Sure it was probably worse before back in the day, then the security risks also included things such as being a homosexual and belonging to the wrong political party -- some of these are probably true today to in various degrees depending on where you are. But in large these days most people seem to be able to forgive some of these things -- but that is usually for ordinary people with ordinary access and if you want to be one of them then this doesn't matter. Petraeus wasn't ordinary in this context.
That doesn't mean that people with security clearance doesn't fool around on the side or do other bad things. They do, probably all the time and almost as often as normal people. That is how they usually loose their security clearance. They do actually ask and check for these things if you want one of these jobs.
So in the case of Petraeus he, and she, should have known better. Even if the wife knew. It doesn't matter. If it wasn't an issue he should have made it public and not been found out. If he wanted to stick it in someone else then he should have gotten a divorce.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 05 2014, @01:15AM
at the same time having lots of extra-martial affairs or some extravagant sexual lifestyle then it is a problem, just as having a drinking problem, a drug problem, a gambling problem or being knee deep in debt is.
The problem here is that one of these is not like the others. Having consensual extra-marital sexual relations (I'm talking about a situation where you have an open marriage) isn't harming anyone (as long as you don't get an STD, but you don't hear of the military disciplining enlisted single soldiers for having premarital sex and STDs/pregnancy are a risk with any sex). Drinking, drugs, and gambling addictions, and excessive debt are all actual problems which harm you.
They are all big nono:s since they make you a security risk and open you up to easy blackmail.
How does having extramarital affairs open you up to blackmail? Well, if you're cheating on your spouse, yes, I see how, but what if you have an open marriage? If someone told my wife I had sex with her friend (which is true BTW), she'd say "yeah, so?" (since she already knows, since I talked to her about it before and after doing it), and her big concern would be how the heck some random stranger knows this private information and is coming to her with it. Of course, with the military the potential for blackmail is there even with open relationships since, instead of going to the spouse, they could go to the CO and get the person in trouble that way, but that's a problem the military created all by itself by having a UCMJ which actually makes extramarital affairs a court-marshallable offense, no different from when you could get in trouble for being exposed as gay.
Even if the wife knew. It doesn't matter.
If the wife knows, then it absolutely does matter, because the only reason it's a problem at that point is because the military has rules against it. If they didn't have such rules, and the wife knows, then there would be no problem. As I said, it's a problem entirely of the military's creation by its insistence on particular moral conduct, no different at all from when homosexual activity (or just being homo) was prohibited.