Biden Battles Russian Hacking Groups With Restrictions on IT Firms (reuters.com) 32
The United States on Friday took a new stab at Russia's cybersecurity industry, restricting trade with four information technology firms and two other entities over "aggressive and harmful" activities -- including digital espionage -- that Washington blames on the Russian government. From a report: A Commerce Department posting said the six entities were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in April, which targeted companies in the technology sector that support Russian intelligence services. Their addition to the Commerce Department's blacklist means U.S. companies cannot sell to them without licenses, which are seldom granted. The announcement follows April's sanctions, which were aimed at punishing Moscow for hacking, interfering in last year's U.S. election, poisoning Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny and other alleged malign actions - allegations the Kremlin denies. They come as the United States is responding to a drumbeat of digital intrusions blamed on Russian government-backed spies and a spate of increasingly disruptive ransomware outbreaks blamed on Russian cybercriminals.
Re:HE'S WAISTING HIS TIME (Score:4, Funny)
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He's just lucky he wasn't found stabbed in the chest with a knife with the inscription "property of Vladimir Putin".
Please, Glorious leader Putin would never stab someone in the chest.
Polonium and Novochok are weapons of choice tovarich.
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Speaking ex-cathedra from my own belly button, let us just say that it's a bridge too far. Now in, and out, of Russia some people had better be very very careful and have lots of personal security. The US has a lot of lofty ideals, but when it comes right down to it we're as brutal as any dictatorship if we want to get an enemy. I know
Fight Fire with Fire (Score:2)
Wouldn't it make more sense to target the individuals in these companies with, I dunno, ransomware attacks so they can access their PCs, DDOS of their internet connections, wipe out their credit cards and bank accounts, change the ownership of their cars and properties, put them on no-fly lists with the reason being "pedaphiles", use their personal phone numbers as the source of anti-Putin robo-call campaigns and I'm sure there's a few others I could come up with a few minutes thought.
Restricting trade wi
criminal immunity for hack backs needed? (Score:2)
criminal immunity for hack backs needed?
We don't need no stinkin' immunity! (Score:2)
I presume that the NSA already has criminal immunity for all the other illegal stuff that they do.
Re:Fight Fire with Fire (Score:4, Interesting)
Finding and freezing the assets of the oligarchy is incredibly effective. It is difficult for westerners to imagine how infuriating and embarrassing it is on the wealthy ruling class to find they have lost the thing that keeps them in power: Money. Also, there is a come-on effect when your peers fall out of favor as their money disappears you will fear for your own standing and use all your power and influence to prevent that outcome.
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https://xkcd.com/538/ [xkcd.com]
Follow the money! (Score:3)
It is foolish to fight the foot soldiers! Take down the leaders and if you can't get to them (which is part of the reason for foot soldiers, to make easy targets hard) take out their supply lines! Go play some war game or read most anything on strategy.
Organized crime uses money (or valuable alternatives) for supply lines and the organizations are almost always centrally managed. Sure they can get new leaders but it's hard to find good management and foot soldiers are relatively disposable they are so abu
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It is foolish to fight the foot soldiers! Take down the leaders and if you can't get to them (which is part of the reason for foot soldiers, to make easy targets hard) take out their supply lines!
I agree, take out their supply lines - that's why I'm saying target the individuals doing the coding in the companies, they're the supply.
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They are more like foot soldiers or 1 step back from the front line at the most. Given how the attackers and scammers are automated bots, isn't the human foot soldier the programmer? or IT person running the programs... making the programmer 1 step removed and yes, part of the supply line but right up next to the foot soldier. If there is even any IT person at all since the programmers can do the IT part as well... how deep are theses operations?
Going after the MONEY which feeds them all is higher up and t
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Nahh, it is straight up all about the money. US tech firms want firms from all over the rest of the world blocked, especially China. They pillage the rest of the world finances with their tech and now they want to keep it. As other countries start shutting out the USA because the software and support services are riddled with backdoors.
Don't you know, reduced bonuses for a psycho corporate executive are a national security risk and foreigners who cause that must DIE. Russia should be happy the tech got bloc
?? American companies using off shore dev centres? (Score:3)
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Before you outsource software, remember that it's harder to sue a company or individual that's far away, and they know this.
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Didn't Boeing have an office in Russia as well?
https://jobs.boeing.com/locati... [boeing.com]
Yeap, they still recruiting there. I understand alot of software development happens (or happened) there. Something about a MAX aircraft was mentioned. Anyone recall that aircraft?
Would have been nice ... (Score:3)
It would have been nice if the submitter, the slashdot editors, or some poster had LISTED THE COMPANIES added to the blacklist.
Found it. (Score:4, Informative)
Found it at US News and World Report [usnews.com]:
Allies vs enemies (Score:4, Interesting)
Some people seem to have a rather black & white, 'us' vs 'them' kind of reasoning when it comes to geopolitics. The USA & Russia are rivals but they still cooperate in a number of ways, e.g. They're both cooperative members of various economic, legal & political organisations. There are also a number of large American corporations that do business in Russia - I worked for some of them in Moscow. Many EU countries are also dependent on a steady flow of Russian gas for their energy needs. There's a lot of potential fallout from not maintaining good diplomatic relations with Russia.
I reckon that by approaching Putin publicly on this issue, Biden's openly giving him a justification for rallying support to go after whichever oligarchs are responsible for these ransomware gangs. Don't think of Putin as being in charge of everyone, he's just the most powerful oligarch at the moment & he has to work with the other oligarchs to maintain stability & keep the flows of money going. Not unlike organised criminal cartels in Mexico & Colombia... but I think that'd also be a gross over-simplification.
Is Microsoft included? (Score:1)