Data security breaches

[Power Raid]

Medibank have publicly stated that they won't be paying the hackers.

Perhaps it should be made illegal to pay a ransom for a data breach? It would encourage companies to make sure their systems are secure, in the knowledge that they can't buy their way out of it after the event. Anyhow, there's no guarantee that paying up will ensure the data will not be released or passed on to other criminals. And it might deter the hackers, knowing they are not going to get a big pay day.

The Medibank hackers, or whoever they sold the data to, are now targeting individual customers by calling them with knowledge of their medical claims, and saying they have unpaid bills. They will catch a few people out but it's not something a company should consider paying a ransom for.

Ransomware is a different category of scam. A business not having access to its systems or data can shut it down, possibly permanently. There's a cost benefit analysis involved. And there's a greater probability that once the ransom has been paid and the hack removed that the threat will be over. Apparently 43% of Australian companies paid ransoms after ransomware attacks.

I have worked in areas where ISIS and abu sayyaf operate and we managed to get them out of these organisation by offering proper jobs.

I wonder if the same could be achieved with hackers?

perhaps they do it because of no other alternative.

 

[burge13]

I have worked in areas where ISIS and abu sayyaf operate and we managed to get them out of these organisation by offering proper jobs.

I wonder if the same could be achieved with hackers?

perhaps they do it because of no other alternative.

Thats really interesting. How is that brokered? Assuming you cant just go chat to them lol

A decent hacker would be making bank but im sure there's plenty of cyber security jobs available too. Probably not a good practice to reward "bad" people? Probably also right re no alternatives though, depends where they are i guess

 

[Power Raid]

Thats really interesting. How is that brokered? Assuming you cant just go chat to them lol

A decent hacker would be making bank but im sure there's plenty of cyber security jobs available too. Probably not a good practice to reward "bad" people? Probably also right re no alternatives though, depends where they are i guess

It was just as easy as going in and talking to them.

By way of background I worked in the military in the 90s and worked in high tension environments. Adding to that I had an auto-immune disease that looked like it was going to be my demise at one stage. So a combination of experience and nothing to lose.

the image top left was the day the Philippines Army took me to the jungles edge and the images at the bottom was when ISIS tried to take control of Zamboanga.



The military would go to the jungles edge but we had to make our own way from there to the Abu Sayaff camp. We were armed and knew we had to keep calm and confident.



The younger Abu Sayyaf wanted to cut our heads off but the older guys listened and we went from there (German hostage beheaded by Abu Sayyaf militants in Philippines | CNN). On the second trip we brought in village people from Peru and aborigines from communities we worked with. So we had "village" people talking to "village" people.

We were awarded a peace prize as in the entire time we operated there, to this day, there has not been a death. Prior to our operations, on average, one soldier or terrorist was killed each week.

One of the guys I was working with got executed a decade later operating in another part of the philippines.

 

[burge13]

It was just as easy as going in and talking to them.

Fascinating overall but this part really surprises me. I assumed they'd be firing at the enemy...

Why wouldn't the army go beyond the jungles edge but you were allowed to? Assume a different team but had you built up rapport locally or something for that to happen?

 

[Power Raid]

Fascinating overall but this part really surprises me. I assumed they'd be firing at the enemy...

Why wouldn't the army go beyond the jungles edge but you were allowed to? Assume a different team but had you built up rapport locally or something for that to happen?

The armies job is to search and kill the militia. So naturally the militia engage the army when ever they cross paths.

Where we built a relationship with the local villages prior to going in. This included the local illegal miners, where we said "mining lead is dangerous. your mining bare hands and carrying the lead on your bare backs covered in sweat. you will get lead poising" "your mining gold using mercury with your bare hands, you will die.............we can't provide you safety equipment, as this would be seen by the Philippines government as supporting illegal mining. but we can hire your wife as a cleaner and give her protective equipment. when you want to quit illegal mining, we have a job for you which is well paid and safe."

We told the abu sayaff we wanted to mine and explore and asked what they wanted in return. They weren't too sure so we said "we will build a school and provide free breakfast and lunch if the kids turn up on time and clean, we will build a hospital (a jungle hospital not a hospital hospital) which is free for women and children, we offered jobs and training". we also said "we heard it was pretty dangerous here with terrorism and all, I note you guys have guns.......can you provide security?"

The offer of health and education was strategic as this means we have direct communication with the women in the community. Like everywhere in the world, once the door closes, the women rule the homes.


Later on in the piece I asked why they joined a terrorist organisation and they responded "we were fisherman and they banned fishing. we lost our livelihood". This is why I say, to get rid of illegal activity perhaps offering people an opportunity or alternative.

 

[Power Raid]

Fascinating overall but this part really surprises me. I assumed they'd be firing at the enemy...

Why wouldn't the army go beyond the jungles edge but you were allowed to? Assume a different team but had you built up rapport locally or something for that to happen?

One morning things were potentially going to get out of control. By way of background 50% of our team was military and 50% ex-terrorists.

At night half the military evacuated at short notice and return early morning, to advise the whole team at breakfast they had just executed some abu sayaff in a different location.



They said to our (now ex) abu sayaff guys, we want you to hear it from us that we killed some of your guys in a different location. The abu sayaff guys simply said "this is our life now". The day went on just like any other day

 

[Sinjin Smith]

So from my sources the Medibank hack was caused by Revil purchasing Medibank user credentials on the dark web, entering their internal environment, upgrading said credentials to admin privileges and stealing the data.

Whats really ****ed about this is Medibank being portrayed as the victim, no Medibank, the victims are your customers!! Now Medibank is to big to fail, I'm not sure if its considered a SoNS but with the class actions, trade market loss and fines coming their way the Feds will bail them out, they'll have too which means it comes out of tax payers $$ so the very customers who are victims (along with all Oz tax payers) are effectively paying to ensure their survival after their lack of internal security controls.

Don't get me wrong the threat actors are assholes but the whole situation makes me furious.

 

[Engimal v3]

Didn't BigFooty have a big data breach once? A couple of years ago now maybe

 

[Hamez]

Didn't BigFooty have a big data breach once? A couple of years ago now maybe

Private details of footy fans exposed in AFL fan forum BigFooty data breach

Private details of footy fans exposed in forum data breach

www.foxsports.com.au

 

[Frank Bunn]

So from my sources the Medibank hack was caused by Revil purchasing Medibank user credentials on the dark web, entering their internal environment, upgrading said credentials to admin privileges and stealing the data.

The thing is you don't need sophisticated hackers to steal the data. Every company now has data analytics and reporting departments where dozens or sometimes hundreds of people have access to every aspect of customer data. They've been working at home for two years, or are overseas - so the security protocols have been relaxed. You just need one person willing to copy the data and the company is compromised.

 

[HairyO]

Got my letter from Medibank.

I only have Ambulance cover so it would be interesting to know what data was taken if Im one of the affected.

 

[Xtreme]

The Australian government know who is responsible and claim they should be "held to account". The Abbott "shirt fronting" approach is only good once in a generation, would like to see THIS Australian government attempt to strong arm the criminals into stopping their activities!!

 

[Orange Agent]

Vic roads are sending me a new licence as mine is part of the exposed data. This is great, I haven't lived in Vic or held a Victorian licence in almost 4 years and I'm not sure what address it's going to be sent to, the last address on that licence was a stick on label. This is probably now a bigger problem than the original breach. Vic roads data base can't even tell which licences are cancelled and which are still valid.

 

[Gralin]

So from my sources the Medibank hack was caused by Revil purchasing Medibank user credentials on the dark web, entering their internal environment, upgrading said credentials to admin privileges and stealing the data.

Whats really ****ed about this is Medibank being portrayed as the victim, no Medibank, the victims are your customers!! Now Medibank is to big to fail, I'm not sure if its considered a SoNS but with the class actions, trade market loss and fines coming their way the Feds will bail them out, they'll have too which means it comes out of tax payers $$ so the very customers who are victims (along with all Oz tax payers) are effectively paying to ensure their survival after their lack of internal security controls.

Don't get me wrong the threat actors are assholes but the whole situation makes me furious.

they reckon the guy whose account got compromised was approving the 2FA requests when it wasn't him logging in.

I'd say that's unlikely but then I've been watching Elon Musk implode twitter in real time, seen billions wiped off US stocks from fake twitter accounts tweeting as companies and remember how many dickheads succeed in politics and think, yeah actually that sounds about right