'Trojan Horse' Bug Lurking in Vital US Computers Since 2011

ABCNews ^ | Nov 6, 2014 | JACK CLOHERTY and PIERRE THOMAS

[driftdiver]

If they could fix it they would. Its probably quite expensive to update all their systems and they just wont do it.

[driftdiver]

“Who are they blabbing to, the Russians?”

Good point, a lot of whats classified is intended to keep Americans from knowing it. In my experience, which I can’t talk about or I would have to kill you.

[Travis McGee]

"If you are prepared, no electricity is a camping vacation."

You think?

Click the pic to the full-text Free Republic thread.

[Kartographer]

Preppers’ PING!!

Hat tip to driftdiver for the heads-up

[logi_cal869]

Because they need to justify their budget requests and/or it’s to be one of the next ‘crises’...

[JimRed]

IF it was done by Russia it is an act of war, and under a real American administration would result in retaliation. Obama will just apologize for whatever offense to them caused them to do such a thing, and use it as an excuse for martial law.

[bubbacluck]

If I understand this correctly from the article, a bunch of systems are infected with malware by the Russians. They probably know that we know, but now that knowledge is out in public; it's the headline on Drudge.

Is the point of making it public to bring pressure from the hopefully irate public so that something is done to correct the problem? As stated in earlier posts, the repairs are very expensive and it seems that the owners don't really want to spend the money.

I'm just trying to figure out why this is becoming public at this time. According to the article it's been in the system since 2011.

[dynoman]

So the idea is this alleged Trojan is something like Stuxnet?

I’m skeptical, and I am in the power industry. The company I work for has nothing critical running on Win98. I’d be surprised if we ever did have any critical controls running on Win98.

[ViLaLuz]

Announced after the elections so republicans get all the blame.

[dynoman]

“The hacked software”

What exactly is the hacked software? SCADA?

[dynoman]

Exactly. I’m skeptical about how serious this is. If this Trojan is embedded in “The hacked software” - whatever that is - why hasn’t it been activated?

[dynoman]

That kind of attack can be accomplished without any kind of a control software hack. The vulnerability that article is about is not in the control software.

[dynoman]

Speculation.

[Darksheare]

“You will be safe ONLY by putting OUR malware on your devices!” - Department of Homeland Security

[ansel12]

“The hack became known to insiders last week when a DHS alert bulletin was issued by the agency’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team to its industry members. The bulletin said the “BlackEnergy” penetration recently had been detected by several companies.

DHS said “BlackEnergy” is the same malware that was used by a Russian cyber-espionage group dubbed “Sandworm” to target NATO and some energy and telecommunications companies in Europe earlier this year. “Analysis of the technical findings in the two reports shows linkages in the shared command and control infrastructure between the campaigns, suggesting both are part of a broader campaign by the same threat actor,” the DHS bulletin said.”

[dynoman]

DHS needs to blab this kind of thing to prove to us they are relevant. In my opinion that is why it’s being released publically. If it was really a serious threat we wouldn’t hear about it - like we don’t hear about thwarted terrorist attacks. Why let the enemy know you know if the threat is real? That’s stupid.

[Lazamataz]

I’ve not worked for government IT, but I work with several professional who have; and I can confirm that in the non-security-based portions of our government domains (i.e. NOT CIA, FBI, NSA, etc.), the security controls are severely lacking.

Not over here they're not.

[familyop]

"If this Trojan is embedded in 'The hacked software' - whatever that is - why hasn’t it been activated?"

With the kind of virus called a time bomb during the '90s. It's easy for crackers to write viruses that are activated at a particular later time. Commercial information technology, as it is, is a national security flaw built by small corporate/government groups with weak software. All SCADA systems should be replaced with free and open source versions and intensely and frequently reviewed by many.

But that's not the only security problem with control systems. As we know, there are also many potential physical risks. The best solution would be much more decentralized and distributed systems facilitated with open source hardware technologies (including heavy equipment built in local small shops around the planet).

[familyop]

"DHS needs to blab this kind of thing to prove to us they are relevant. In my opinion that is why it’s being released publically. If it was really a serious threat we wouldn’t hear about it - like we don’t hear about thwarted terrorist attacks. Why let the enemy know you know if the threat is real? That’s stupid."

Obscurity is not the best security measure for industrial and infrastructure controls.

[dynoman]

It depends who the information is being obscured from. The general public doesn’t need to know because there is nothing they could do about it. If there is something they could specifically do about preventing an attack on industrial and infrastructure controls- what is it?