US Charges Four Russian Spies for Hacking Saudi Oil Facility and US Nuclear Power Plant (techcrunch.com) 11
The U.S. Department of Justice has announced charges against four Russian government employees for a years-long hacking campaign targeting critical infrastructure, including a U.S. nuclear power operator and a Saudi petrochemical facility. From a report: The first indictment, from June 2021, charges Evgeny Viktorovich Gladkikh, 36, a computer programmer at the Russian Ministry of Defense, and two co-conspirators, of planning to hack industrial control systems -- the critical devices that keep industrial facilities operational -- at global energy facilities. Gladkikh is believed to be behind the infamous Triton malware, which was used to target a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia in 2017. Hackers used the malware in an attempt to disable safety systems in the plant designed to prevent dangerous conditions that could lead to leaks or explosions. Triton was first linked to Russia in October 2018. Following their failed plot to blow up the Saudi plant, the hackers attempted to hack the computers of a company that managed similar critical infrastructure entities in the U.S, according to the DOJ.
Russian cybersecurity must reek (Score:2)
...Like the big dog's m0e? As we used to say in the old days. And Slashdot must be blocking the trolls from FP, so I'll try to break the logjam and start the discussion. But with the obvious, which is all that I can usually see or comment upon.
Russia's internal security must be gawdawful if we have such levels of detail about who is doing what in their cyberwarfare operations. It makes sense that we can detect the intrusions on our side if we have reasonable cybersecurity (and I hope (or should I pray?) tha
Eh, that's their full-time job (Score:2)
There are some people in the US who have as their job to watch the Russian hackers and see what they're up to. That's what these men and women do forty hours a week. Every day, 9-5 they look at what the Russian hackers have been up to in the last couple days, and try to figure out who is doing what and what they might do next.
When you have several people watching you as their full-time job, after a couple years they'll likely figure out who you are. That's just the nature of things.
One of the people I know
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Really? No one has anything to say on the topic? On the basis of elapsed time, I think I smell a troll tornado behind the scenes... (Does an angry sock puppet have any odor?) Or maybe I should have tried harder to say something provocative? (Just joking. Not actually interested in provocation, though I seem to do it by accident often enough.)
One more aspect has come to mind, however... I'm wondering "How much of the Russian malware is based on non-Russian malware?" It would be hilarious if our malware inclu
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Russia's internal security must be gawdawful if we have such levels of detail about who is doing what
You are assuming that the DOJ's accusations are accurate.
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Not really, but can you give a reason for naming names if they don't actually know them?
And I still think there is something weird about the lack of reaction to this story. Several hours since it was originally posted. Is it possible that Slashdot has some kind of automatic sock-puppet detector that is actually working for this story?
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can you give a reason for naming names if they don't actually know them?
1. The Russians are feeding them false information.
2. They want to look smart and competent, and using specific names helps with that.
there is something weird about the lack of reaction to this story.
Slashdot has far fewer users than in the olden days. Several stories on the front page have single-digit comments.
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Hmm... I think that mostly comes back to Slashdot's poor business model that can't sustain the system properly, let alone support improvements. It would be interesting to review the traffic logs, but the low-reaction stories might be due to poor editorial choices.
I don't buy your first theory unless they are playing some kind of "you thought that I thought" game. Pretending to believe the false information to convince your adversary that the disinformation campaign is working? I don't think so, because it b
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Perhaps the fine cryptanalysts of /. managed to sanction Russia. Little did we know that 3/4 of the comments were from Russian trolls.
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Yeah, I had a thought something along those lines. The story was posted about 6 hours ago. Excluding suspected trolls killed the discussion? Or excluding suspected possible sock puppets? I can't imagine there's an editor on duty watching for stupid ASCII troll comments, but perhaps they have to be FP or they don't get troll brownie points? (You don't want to know what troll brownies are made of.)
Maybe most of the "real" Slashdot users these days are living in basements and don't care about Saudi oil? Maybe
No surprise (Score:2)
Every other week we see yet another report of something in the West that got hacked by Russian operatives of one kind or another.
We know the intelligence services would like to have deep persistent access to critical systems so they can shut them down at will. We know their lower tier criminal element is protected and encouraged to constantly erode Western businesses with ransomware and botnets. So it is no surprise that they try to hack large energy sources and infrastructure.
Now, it's entirely possible th
LOL not Russian Spies again! (Score:1)
Those pesky buggers are everywhere! I think I just saw them under my bed!