Russia Launched Ukraine Invasion With Hack of Thousands of Satellite Modems (thehill.com) 43
"The Washington Post reports that at the outset of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian military communications, as well as that of customers across Europe, was accomplished by the compromise of tens of thousands of satellite modems provided by Viasat's KA-SAT service," writes longtime Slashdot reader An Ominous Cow Erred. "Viasat is now having to replace the insecure modems for all affected customers. This raises questions about the vulnerability of other broadband services with poorly-maintained firmware on their customer network infrastructure." From the report: Earlier this month, Zhora described the impact of the sabotage as "a really huge loss in communications in the very beginning of war." Dmitri Alperovitch, a cyber expert and chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator think tank, said satellite communications "have been used extensively by Ukrainian military not just for command and control of forces but also for tactical missions such as use of drones against Russian armor." Said Alperovitch: "We can't know for sure, but this KA-SAT attack may have had a serious impact on degrading Ukrainian military capabilities at the outset of the war.'' Elon Musk has responded to Slashdot on Twitter, stating that: "Starlink, at least so far, has resisted all hacking & jamming attempts."
...a serious impact... (Score:1)
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And that is why you should never take serious strategic or foreign-policy advice from yes-men.
Elon will make a fortune (Score:2)
And I hope he will.
Grammar much? (Score:2)
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I typoed my submission. =( Kind editors fixed it.
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Er, I mean I wish kind editors fixed it. More typos. I don't claim to be the best at formatting my text.
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It's ok, I'm surprised a cow can type as well as you did in the first place.
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For the Old School: "Editors." Ha. You must be new here.
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I'm a mere 5 digit ID. Forgive me for being a newbie. =(
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Indeed. I look forward to it. Please do it American History X style. Maybe rough me up a bit first though, you have to be stylish and not just rush to the main event.
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You're right. It's time to just end it all. The consequences will never be the same.
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Post your address
I move around a lot, best to get me at work [rbth.com]
and a good time to MURDER you,
Sooner the better.
please.
You're most welcome.
Viasat (Score:3)
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Viasats security is abysmal, and they run a large portion of the "secured" US government communication including air force one.
IIRC they also run remote sensors for the CTBT
Re: Viasat (Score:2)
Do you have any evidence for that?
The modems that were affected in this attack were maintained by a company called SkyLogic that was still responsible for them, even though the property had been acquired by Viasat.
The Viasat deployed-and-managed modems were not affected by the attack and actually have been operating continuously in Ukraine since 2014.
Re: Viasat (Score:2)
Two words: admin, password (Score:2)
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Wow, that's the same as my root certificate!
Has WW III started? (Score:2)
The Russian cyberattack also also took out thousands of satellite terminals in other, many in NATO, countries [wired.com].
Among them were those in the process control network for many of Germany's wind power generators (though the network also had non-satellite links so the windmills are still operating).
NATO's article five reads:
Typo in the /blockquote (Score:2)
sorry 'bout that
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If not, why is NATO not ALREADY at war with Russia?
Well, one could easily argue that NATO is already at war with Russia. NATO countries are providing literally billions of dollars of lethal military ordinance directly to Ukraine, and the Ukrainian military seems to be using it to great effect - to the point where Putin is apparently moving the goalposts and saying "just kidding about all that demilitarization and denazification stuff, we were really only trying to secure the Donbas region".
I'll be surprised if the little spymaster manages to recover from hi
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If not, why is NATO not ALREADY at war with Russia?
Well, one could easily argue that NATO is already at war with Russia. NATO countries are providing literally billions of dollars of lethal military ordinance directly to Ukraine, and the Ukrainian military seems to be using it to great effect - to the point where Putin is apparently moving the goalposts and saying "just kidding about all that demilitarization and denazification stuff, we were really only trying to secure the Donbas region".
I'll be surprised if the little spymaster manages to recover from his Ukrainian debacle. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Master Putin!
Even if he stops at Donbas we should certainly not be removing any sanctions. Probably should never be lifted while he is still in power at all, though if he gives back Crimea maybe the world will give him a pass on his coming soon war crimes indictments.
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Maybe we should tell the Russians that we'll lift all the sanctions one hour after they hand Putin over to the Hague.
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That's kind of picky. Beggars can't be choosers. Anyone who takes out Putin is taking a big risk, so if it happens, we should be generous to whoever did it.
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Russia is not going to be made to pay reparations, and even if they could it would destabilize relations with China with whomever tried to make them.
Russia is not some lightweight to be pushed around on the world stage.
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Companies need to stop being complacent (Score:2)
Let's hope that SpaceX's active measure for security on their Starlink service pans out. They seem to be paying much closer attention than most broadband providers.
Steve Wozniak actually posted on slashdot (Score:2)
He did a cool demo, set the car on cruise, at 75 mph. Then used short pushes on the stalk to bump the speed up by 1 mph increments. 76, 77, 78, ... , after 82 mph something crashed, throttle opened wide and the car started accelerating. He knew somehow to cancel and get manual control back. Posted in slashdot why and how.
Elon responds on twitter. He should post here and try to get +1 insightful
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> Elon responds on twitter. He should post here and try to get +1 insightful
You misspelled -1, Troll
Re: Conventional isp opsec no better (Score:2)
The state of firmware in consumer premise equipment is horrible compared to consumer WiFi routers.
It's even worse right now, because there isn't really any choice, you buy what's available. The manufacturers have no incentive at all to fix their crap, because everything they can make is sold out months in advance.
It's not just shocks from covid and the war, before that the supply chain was already disrupted from the Huawei ban. Big ISPs told manufacturers "stop making those tried and tested devices and whip