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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Windows at 7:10 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Tsar Bomba mushroom cloud
Summary: New example of the high cost of Windows and a new example of FUD in the press, attributing an attack on SCADA to “Linux”
BY NOW, owing to leaks, people know where Stuxnet came from. Israel and the United States developed it and then used it to derail facilities in Iran. It is cyberwar, and it was started quite proactively. A lot of businesses around the world suffered from Stuxnet too, demonstrating quite clearly that the NSA’s criminal behaviour has a high price; others pay the toll, not just US taxpayers. Given the special relationship between Microsoft and the NSA, Stuxnet’s reliance on Windows is not surprising; it’s well known by now.
=> ↺ where Stuxnet came from | ↺ special relationship between Microsoft and the NSA
Putting aside the old news about Stuxnet, Kaspersky claims that Stuxnet infected a Russian nuclear plant. This is extremely dangerous because the US and Russia/USSR have been very close to nuclear war on numerous occasions in the past 30 years. A lot of people don’t know this because such material takes decades before it’s declassified.
=> ↺ Kaspersky claims that Stuxnet infected a Russian nuclear plant | ↺ the US and Russia/USSR have been very close to nuclear war on numerous occasions in the past 30 years
“A lot of people don’t know this because such material takes decades before it’s declassified.”With clever phishing scams, not even strong passwords that computer scientists tend to choose can provide protection and it is no secret that Free software is penetrable due to incompetence during setup [1] or even delay in patching/maintenance (new examples in [2-8]). Underlying languages/frameworks can sometimes be the culprits [9,10], but that doesn’t mean that in practice it is easy to crack a GNU/Linux system. Evidence suggests that it is hard.
=> ↺ clever phishing scams | ↺ strong passwords that computer scientists tend to choose
Having had Windows malware issues in space (USB sticks inside Windows), the International Space Station (ISS) recently moved to Debian GNU/Linux [1. 2]. But this weird article tells a dubious story. It says that ISS got a malware infection from Russian astronauts and then adds this sentence: “The reason is that the space station uses computer-controlled SCADA systems in order to manage various physical components of the satellite. As these systems are based on Linux, they are open to infection.”
=> ↺ 1 | ↺ 2 | ↺ this weird article tells a dubious story
“The problem is prevalent in proprietary software not just of Microsoft and the solution may be to simply ban the use of proprietary software.”Really?
Stuxnet malware has been targeting SCADA systems and they run Windows. We’ve sent almost a dozen E-mails back and forth to verify the facts and we are pretty sure the above is a lie. Sosumi says “the rhetoric is made as if linux is the problem [...] the whole thing is fishy [...] it’s like I said, the article is done as if linux was the problem” (it’s not).
iophk wrote: “I would think that the PR people for all the major distros would be all over that article correcting it and demanding a retraction.” He later said: “If you have any contact at Red Hat and Canonical, they might want to find some way of correcting this article [...] It makes it look like the previous Windows infections were Linux.”
Nice FUD they got there.
“Hackers”, in the mean time, are being demonised by Microsoft, which simply misuses the term [11]. The US government cannot seem to understand that relying on Windows in critical systems is a bad idea [12,13] because even fonts open a back door [14,15]. The problem is prevalent in proprietary software not just of Microsoft [16] and the solution may be to simply ban the use of proprietary software [17]. It is improperly reviewed. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
SSL Study Shows Most Sites Incorrectly ConfiguredBlack Hat research takes a deep look at SSL security and finds it lacking due to a number of common configuration issues. Ubuntu: 2014-1: OpenSSH vulnerabilityGentoo: 201310-17 pmake: Insecure temporary file usageGentoo: 201310-16 TPTEST: Arbitrary code executionGentoo: 201310-18 GnuTLS: Multiple vulnerabilitiesGentoo: 201310-19 X2Go Server: Arbitrary code executionDebian: 2786-1: icu: Multiple vulnerabilitiesDebian: 2787-1: roundcube: design errorIs PHP Secure?In a classic watering hole attack, hackers compromised a well-known, respected high-traffic Website and planted malware in a bid to infect unsuspecting visitors. On Oct. 24, Google began to flag PHP.net as being a site hosting malware, i.e., potentially a watering hole.PHP.net Compromised. Served Malicious JSM$ Denigrates HackersDHS hammering out cybersecurity planningDatabase hacking spree on US Army, NASA, and others costs gov’t millionsFederal prosecutors have accused a UK man of hacking thousands of computer systems, many of them belonging to the US government, and stealing massive quantities of data that resulted in millions of dollars in damages to victims.Microsoft in a TIFF over Windows, Office bug that runs code hidden in picsNot Again! M$’s OS Executes Data In Images…It’s such a simple concept. Data should not be executed. Images are data. But, no, M$ does not get that and randomly executes code contained in some TIFF images. Out of the bowels of M$’s complexity comes yet another invitation to millions of bad guys to post TIFFs all over the web damaging the systems of millions of users.38 million Adobe users hacked, not 3 millionAdobe has revealed the massive hack it suffered a month ago was far bigger than initially reported, with attackers obtaining data on more than 38 million customer accounts. [Bruce Schneier:] Understanding the Threats in CyberspaceThe primary difficulty of cyber security isn’t technology — it’s policy.
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