Foreign actors hacking the Treasury Department

[Thomas Veil]

This is just breaking on MSNBC. More agencies may be involved.

Update: Reuters has the story online.

Suspected Russian hackers spied on U.S. Treasury emails - sources

Hackers believed to be working for Russia have been monitoring internal email traffic at the U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments, according to people familiar with the matter, adding they feared the hacks uncovered so far may be the tip of the iceberg.

www.reuters.com

 

[Eraserhead]

Not good.

 

[Alli]

Who would have thought our country was that insecure....

 

[thekev]

Who would have thought our country was that insecure....

You don't know exactly how they pulled it off or how much research was involved. Typically their network security guys won't allow really old and insecure interfaces to be exposed in anything user facing, so even if you have ancient libraries or runtimes with known vulnerabilities in there somewhere, it's unlikely that they are directly visible. They could have compromised it via internal personnel or some obscure side channel. Some of these things can be pretty obscure and may not be directly observable from publicly exposed interfaces.

 

[lizkat]

Meanwhile Trump fired the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency awhile back because he didn't like the guy refuting Trump's assertion of widespread electoral fraud.

White House acknowledges reports of cyberattack on U.S. Treasury by foreign government

The latest revelation comes less than a month after President Donald Trump fired Christopher Krebs, the nation's top cybersecurity official.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Eric]

This is huge, they're saying virtually every department has been hacked and Russia is likely still getting data. Trump will not address or even acknowledge it so it'll likely continue at least until Biden takes over, until then any state communications are going to be compromised.

 

[lizkat]

This is huge, they're saying virtually every department has been hacked and Russia is likely still getting data. Trump will not address or even acknowledge it so it'll likely continue at least until Biden takes over, until then any state communications are going to be compromised.

Even burner phones and cheap laptops might not suffice.... although some of those might be a fallback if it's going to take months to unearth the extent to which legitimate looking credentials have been installed in assorted agency subnets in the meantime.

"Let's go for a walk and talk with our hands cupped around our mouths."​

For once I feel it's wholly insufficient to think "what a disgrace" and turn the page to some other topic. On the other hand it's a horrifying thing to think about at all never mind at level of detail we're not likely to learn.

The incompetence, negligence, malevolence... was it all of that? what should the price be now and how to make Trump pay?

Meanwhile the cyberwar rat races continue up the ladders of "oh no you don't" and "oh yeah, watch this".

 

[Eric]

Even burner phones and cheap laptops might not suffice.... although some of those might be a fallback if it's going to take months to unearth the extent to which legitimate looking credentials have been installed in assorted agency subnets in the meantime.

"Let's go for a walk and talk with our hands cupped around our mouths."​

For once I feel it's wholly insufficient to think "what a disgrace" and turn the page to some other topic. On the other hand it's a horrifying thing to think about at all never mind at level of detail we're not likely to learn.

The incompetence, negligence, malevolence... was it all of that? what should the price be now and how to make Trump pay?

Meanwhile the cyberwar rat races continue up the ladders of "oh no you don't" and "oh yeah, watch this".

Putin's never had it better and to this day commands Trump's respect more than anyone in his own state department. He's basically just handed over the keys and removed any protections we had in place, this sort of security is a staple for Republicans and look at how they're turning a blind eye to it now.

 

[SuperMatt]

Putin's never had it better and to this day commands Trump's respect more than anyone in his own state department. He's basically just handed over the keys and removed any protections we had in place, this sort of security is a staple for Republicans and look at how they're turning a blind eye to it now.

Right on: Romney nailed it during an interview on Meet the Press:

I think he feels that anything that suggests that Russia is being malevolent or not treating him with the respect he deserves, why, he obviously backs away from that," Romney added. "He doesn't want to recognize Russia as the problem they are and the extraordinarily bad actor they are on the world stage. Because it reflects poorly on him, at least perhaps in his own mind. And the reality is, Russia really is a geopolitical adversary. They go against us on every front. They have now invaded our cyberspace again.

Romney says Russia attacked U.S. with no fear of reprisal

He also said President Trump has “a blind spot” toward Vladimir Putin’s government.

www.politico.com