Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:45:27 -0600
From: Laurelai <laurelai@...echan.org>
To: James Smith <james@...thwaysecurity.com>
Cc: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
Subject: Re: Fwd: Rate Stratfor's Incident Response

On 1/10/12 11:32 PM, James Smith wrote:
> Well I do agree with what you are stating. As I have seen incidents 
> like this happen to many times.
> This mailing list is a big part of the IT Security community.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Laurelai
> Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2012 1:18 AM
> To: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] Fwd: Rate Stratfor's Incident Response
>
> On 1/10/12 10:18 PM, Byron Sonne wrote:
>>> Don't piss off a talented adolescent with computer skills.
>> Amen! I love me some stylin' pwnage :)
>>
>> Whether they were skiddies or actual hackers, it's still amusing (and
>> frightening to some) that companies who really should know better, in
>> fact, don't.
>>
> And again, if companies hired these people, most of whom come from
> disadvantaged backgrounds and are self taught they wouldn't have as much
> a reason to be angry anymore. Most of them feel like they don't have any
> real opportunities for a career and they are often right. Microsoft
> hired some kid who hacked their network, it is a safe bet he isn't going
> to be causing any trouble anymore. Talking about the trust issue, who
> would you trust more the person who has all the certs and experience
> that told you your network was safe or the 14 year old who proved him
> wrong? We all know if that kid had approached microsoft with his exploit
> in a responsible manner they would have outright ignored him, that's why
> this mailing list exists, because companies will ignore security issues
> until it bites them in the ass to save a buck.
>
> People are way too obsessed with having certifications that don't
> actually teach practical intrusion techniques. If a system is so fragile
> that teenagers can take it down with minimal effort then there is a
> serious problem with the IT security industry. Think about it how long
> has sql injection been around? There is absolutely no excuse for being
> vulnerable to it. None what so ever. These kids are showing people the
> truth about the state of security online and that is whats making people
> afraid of them. They aren't writing 0 days every week, they are using
> vulnerabilities that are publicly available. Using tools that are
> publicly available, tools that were meant to be used by the people
> protecting the systems. Clearly the people in charge of protecting these
> system aren't using these tools to scan their systems or else they would
> have found the weaknesses first.
>
> The fact that government organizations and large name companies and
> government contractors fall prey to these types of attacks just goes to
> show the level of hypocrisy inherent to the situation. Especially when
> their solution to the problem is to just pass more and more restrictive
> laws (as if that's going to stop them). These kids are showing people
> that the emperor has no clothes and that's whats making people angry,
> they are putting someones paycheck in danger. Why don't we solve the
> problem by actually addressing the real problem and fixing systems that
> need to be fixed? Why not hire these kids with the time and energy on
> their hands to probe for these weaknesses on a large scale? The ones
> currently in the job slots to do this clearly aren't doing it.  I bet if
> they started replacing these people with these kids it would shake the
> lethargy out of the rest of them and you would see a general increase in
> competence and security. Knowing that if you get your network owned by a
> teenager will not only get you fired, but replaced with said teenager is
> one hell of an incentive to make sure you get it right.
>
>
> Yes they would have to be taught additional skills to round out what
> they know, but every job requires some level of training and there are
> quite a few workplaces that will help their employees continue their
> education because it benefits the company to do so. This would be no
> different except that the employees would be younger, and younger people
> do tend to learn faster so it would likely take less time to teach these
> kids the needed skills to round out what they already know than it would
> to teach someone older the same thing. It is the same principal behind
> teaching young children multiple languages, they learn them better than
> adults.
>
> _______________________________________________
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Yes I am aware they are, the ones who cry out that they are just script 
kiddies and such are the ones who are most likely to be vulnerable in my 
experience. Point is they still got owned, doesn't matter if the method 
was easy. In fact because it was easy should be an even greater concern 
to everyone here. The fact that Stratfor got owned like they did shows 
they were beyond negligent, HBGary was the same as was Sony. They 
shouldn't be trying to prosecute these kids they should go after these 
companies for grossly mishandling peoples personal information.

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