US treasury hacked by foreign government group

[drunkenshoe]

What's going on? Any opinion?

Concern that hackers who breached treasury and commerce departments used similar tool to break into other agencies

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/dec/13/us-treasury-hacked-group-backed-by-foreign-government-report

Russian Hackers Broke Into Federal Agencies, U.S. Officials Suspect

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/13/us/politics/russian-hackers-us-government-treasury-commerce.html

The Trump administration acknowledged on Sunday that hackers acting on behalf of a foreign government — almost certainly a Russian intelligence agency, according to federal and private experts — broke into a range of key government networks, including in the Treasury and Commerce Departments, and had free access to their email systems.

Officials said a hunt was on to determine if other parts of the government had been affected by what looked to be one of the most sophisticated, and perhaps among the largest, attacks on federal systems in the past five years. Several said national security-related agencies were also targeted, though it was not clear whether the systems contained highly classified material.

The Trump administration said little in public about the hack, which suggested that while the government was worried about Russian intervention in the 2020 election, key agencies working for the administration — and unrelated to the election — were actually the subject of a sophisticated attack that they were unaware of until recent weeks.

“The United States government is aware of these reports, and we are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation,” John Ullyot, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement. The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, whose leader was fired by President Trump last month for declaring that there had been no widespread election fraud, said in a statement that it had been called in as well.

The Commerce Department acknowledged that one of its agencies had been affected, without naming it. But it appeared to be the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which helps determine policy for internet-related issues, including setting standards and blocking imports and exports of technology that is considered a national security risk. ...

[Baruch]

Trump is having sex with Putin, and they bumped into the Internet master switch accidentally ;-)

"US HIT BY MAJOR CYBER ATTACK GOING BACK MAYBE SIX MONTHS, TRUMP WAS RIGHT TO FIRE CISA HEAD" ... probably fired him for multiple reasons, see Dominion Systems ;-)  SolarWinds is the outsourced code monkeys who have failed to do their most important job.  Most government software projects whether outsourced or developed in-house have been abject failures.  Software is hard, particularly while reading Das Kapital.

"Dominion Voting Systems Uses Firm That Enabled US Treasury Hack" .. but one of many ... "SolarWinds … says its products and services are used by more than 300,000 customers around the world, including all five branches of the U.S. military and more than 425 of the U.S. Fortune 500." - centralize everything, then be an easy target.  Get rid of in-house IT, those guys are expensive and autistic!  This is how a few years ago, 23 million Federal worker and contractor records were stolen from the OMB.

"The only known mitigation measure currently available is to disconnect affected devices .." isn't networking marvelous?

In other news ... "Massive Cyberattack On 40 Israeli Firms Believed To Be Iran's "Revenge" For Assassination" ... but we know from Snowden that the CIA can imitate any other nation/group as the hacker.  Also that CIA software was later stolen and put into the Dark Web.  For all we know, this US treasury hack was an inside job (the profit motive is obvious).

[Unbeliever]

And Trump's response was to act swiftly to denounce Russia for the hacking.

Oh, wait, no he didn't, he went golfing. My bad.

[Baruch]

And Trump's response was to act swiftly to denounce Russia for the hacking.

Oh, wait, no he didn't, he went golfing. My bad.

Russians = guilty
Chinese = innocent

Is that you, Fang Fang? (Suzy Wong to Rep Swalwell).

[Baruch]

""Solarwinds123": Hacked IT Company Used Weak Password, While Backdoor Access Peddled On Underground Forums" ... 20 something IT people are fresh and new, but don't know shit.

"Treasury will follow up on its findings with respect to Vietnam and Switzerland to work toward eliminating practices that create unfair advantages for foreign competitors." ... why would anyone steal economic data?  Currency manipulation and insider info used in trades.  Of course Switzerland has been a banking criminal for over 200 years now.

[Shiranu]

Disclaimer: This is something I don't have the slightest education in, so I can only repeat what smarter people than I say...

From what I have read, the real damage this has caused is that since this has been going on since March, it has potentially means not so much that valuable info was stolen but instead meant that information within the Treasury has been altered... so that any future policy based on said information could be based upon misinformation.

It seems like several times a year I hear about Chinese and Russian agents (occasionally Iranian) hacking into our government systems, which concerns me that while I doubt they are going to anything instantly drastic and catastrophic, they can cause a bunch of little issues that add up over time that grow into much larger issues that don't have their finger prints all over it (even if they were a key cause of those major issues happening).

*I also realize American intelligence does the exact same thing to foreign countries, so I don't want to act like we are the "victims", but as an American I have an inherent bias about being more concerned about when it happens to us*

[aitm]

I keep all my gold buried under a Bush in my backyard, and my cash stuffed under my mattress. No one would ever know.

[Mike Cl]

I keep all my gold buried under a Bush in my backyard, and my cash stuffed under my mattress. No one would ever know.

Under which Bush?  Big Daddy or Georgie porgie????

[Cassia]

Last month I was reading an old book from my shelves about pirates (from a nice leather bound Time/Life series about ships). Five $50 dollar series EE US treasury savings bonds fell out of the pages. Talk about some pirate booty. I had forgotten I stashed them so long ago (bought in late 80's). I went to Treasury Dept. website and converted them to electronic bills (you have to mail them in). Now they are worth $630 and are still earning. I guess the Russians are on to me now.

[SGOS]

I believe I had that very Time-Life series about pirates/sailing ships/whatever, but they were lost in divorce, moves, and house cleaning.  I had several of those series that were devoted to all sorts of topics, but all the information was basically from other books.  It's like some department at Time-Life decided to do research papers.

[Cassia]

I believe I had that very Time-Life series about pirates/sailing ships/whatever, but they were lost in divorce, moves, and house cleaning.  I had several of those series that were devoted to all sorts of topics, but all the information was basically from other books.  It's like some department at Time-Life decided to do research papers.

Yes, my favorite ones are about the huge "ships of the line" and also the smaller frigates like the USS Constitution and her various entanglements. And speaking of the Treasury dept. they operated the United States Revenue Cutter Service to catch various smugglers back in the day.

[Baruch]

I keep all my gold buried under a Bush in my backyard, and my cash stuffed under my mattress. No one would ever know.

Doesn't that make things awkward for George W? ;-p  I keep my cash stuffed in a turkey, I like my money well baked ;-)

[Baruch]

I believe I had that very Time-Life series about pirates/sailing ships/whatever, but they were lost in divorce, moves, and house cleaning.  I had several of those series that were devoted to all sorts of topics, but all the information was basically from other books.  It's like some department at Time-Life decided to do research papers.

I had the complete series on the Old West.  Go figure ;-)

[Baruch]

Yes, my favorite ones are about the huge "ships of the line" and also the smaller frigates like the USS Constitution and her various entanglements. And speaking of the Treasury dept. they operated the United States Revenue Cutter Service to catch various smugglers back in the day.

Early 20th century US decryption efforts were done against smugglers ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizebeth_Smith_Friedman

Take that, Alan Turing!
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"Robinhood Pays $65 Million To Settle Sales Of Retail Orders To Frontrunning HFTs" ... new day traders born every day

"Yes, let's only have socialism for corporations. The stock market must go higher!!!" ... this is the real bi-partisan policy.

Roman Empire analogy .. from 30 BCE to 301 CE ... Augustus to Diocletian, the denarius relative to gold had dropped 50 to 1.  That is based on debased denarii.  That is just about the movement from 1913 to 2020 for the US.  The bronze coinage of the Roman Empire failed completely in 265 CE and had to be reinvented by Diocletian.  But at that point hyperinflation intervened, not to be stopped until after Rome had fallen to the barbarians in 476 CE.
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"US Nuclear Weapons Agency Breached As Part Of Massive Cyberattack: Report" .. so glad China has control of US nukes now.  Shouldn't have left a guest account with default password "password" ;-)

[Cassia]

Trump's tweet blames the media instead of Russia. Downplays the breach. Sounds like Jan Brady.

The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control. Russia, Russia, Russia ........