UK agency makes arrest in airport cyberattack investigation The UK's National Crime Agency has arrested a man as part of an investigation into a ransomware attack that disrupted airports around the world last weekend. panoramic view of empty runway at gatwick airport Ex-DJI veep: There was no drone at Gatwick during 2018's hysterical shutdown FROM THE ARCHIVES The attack targeting …
I never saw anything like this when I started flying, giving the officials a sheet of paper details to get on the plane and then smoking with everyone once the plane took off, OK that was years ago when it was not a problem to have anything sharp in your bag - I never saw problems flying around for years - these days everyone is having to work to do "Lets fix this problem and we need to start looking for the next problem!"
...and that's when planes were being bombed and hijacked on a semi-regular basis, far more people were dying of lung cancer from passive smoking, and flying wasn't generally affordable to the masses beyond a once-a-year package holiday if you were lucky...
In 20 years from the mid-90s to the mid-2010s, UK passenger numbers alone increased from ~140 million a year to ~250 million a year. That simply wouldn't have happened if everything was still paper-based.
So with the greatest respect, kindly take your cancerous (literally) "nostalgia" and shove it up your arse, as it's irrelevant naval gazing bollocks.
How? Probably paid for access, paid for ransomware, followed the docmentation on how to use both.... you know its how this rolls right? Both elements are available to buy...
The access piece is the hardest but I'd bet it was either a VPN cve the "ransomwarer" used or someone had already used the exploit and had a RAT ready to go for a buyer. Either way, you can buy this access. Often the perp won't even know who he's blackmailing... seen that before!
I doubt if Collins will ever publicly admit the details of how they got in, but I'll bet they know already.
Found the hole before it was exploited? I doubt it very much indeed.
The main path for these things is unpatched VPN servers (although zero day vpn exploits are a thing, but not usually commercial ransomware - thats usually nation states) and almost certainly its down to the organisation not paying attention to patch/CVE announcements or having more VPN's than they know/care about.
Just speaking from hard bitten experience...
(if they have the right guy) is why he did it ? Simply a money making exercise or something else ?
We'll have to wait and see, but..
Officers from the UK's National Crime Agency, supported by a regional organized crime unit, arrested a man in his forties in West Sussex
So maybe just a disgruntled current/former employee that was being aged out or offshored. No need for conspiracies when crimes often have simpler motives.
Yep it seems like at least 9 times out of 10 you can guess the motives based on the age/location of the perp.
- if it is a teenager it was done for the lulz and the cred
- if it is a middle aged man it is a disgruntled former employee
- if it is someone overseas they can't touch it was done either for ransom or were state sponsored hackers testing reactions (in case they choose to deploy the devastatingly worse attacks they no doubt have at the ready if their leader gives the go ahead)
Why is this a crime that is done by males 100% of the time? Women are increasingly represented in tech roles, but they never seem to be responsible for criminal hacking. Is it because male hackers tend to be misogynistic incels who exclude them, or because women simply have no interest in doing this?
Why is this a crime that is done by males 100% of the time? Women are increasingly represented in tech roles, but they never seem to be responsible for criminal hacking. Is it because male hackers tend to be misogynistic incels who exclude them, or because women simply have no interest in doing this?
I don't know that it is 100% male, but that could be a function of motivations and demographics. If the motivation was extortion, women do that. If it was revenge, with a side-order of extortion, women also do that. If it was just for the lulz, maybe women do that as well and if more women persue IT careers, maybe there'll be more women hackers. I think it's one of those statistics vs stereotypes issues though and based on my own experience, IT still seems to be very male dominated.
I think it's also a general demographics issue, ie to be a good hacker (vs a skiddy) needs a pretty specific skillset and motivation to dive deep into the guts of kernels, OSs, applications and the right kind of brain, male or female. Women seem less inclined to do that, but then neither am I. I did some low-level programming when I was (much) younger, but I don't enjoy it. So if I were ever to try becoming a criminal mastermind, I'd just groom & recruit misogynist incels that had hacking skills. Which would be social engineering and ego stroking, which could be easier for women. Or maybe I use an 'AI' woman persona to do that. Yeh baby! I can't wait to hook up with you, but I just need you to do something for me first.. you do love me, don't you? Just do this one little thing, and then we can be together..
Which may be another gender thing. Men tend to be more impulsive, risk takers and well, a bit gullible. Most of us know right & wrong, or can understand risk vs reward. Maybe I could get some clout as a hacker, or criminal mastermind.. but then I know that if I tried it, there'd be LEAs looking to catch me and I think I much prefer my current lifestyle to sitting in a jail.
Why is this a crime that is done by males 100% of the time?
A 20 year old woman was arrested as part of the M&S cyber-crime "gang of four" back in July; so it appears not to be 100%.
There are a whole load of issues and causes that drive disparities between males and females. Toxic attitudes and sub-cultures exist in both but the anti-social behaviours that arise are often different in nature and this can lead to large statistical biases when looking at the outcomes of those behaviours.
But it is always worth remembering the fundamentals of logic: A hypotheses "Most X are Y" does not imply that "Most Y are X".
It must be such a relief that it wasn’t a teenager this time. For once, we’re spared the ritual of discovering that “the world’s airports” can be crippled by a bored 17-year-old with a laptop in their bedroom. Now we can all rest easy knowing it was a “man in his forties” - as if that somehow makes the fragility of these systems less embarrassing.
