Ding ding ding, we have a winner. I know nothing about the specific cases here, but web security is generally a joke. Very, very few companies take it seriously and have a proper security methodology. Without this, it's like stealing candy from a baby... with no arms or legs.
Most plausible hypothesis
I used to try to point such problems out to responsible parties, when I'd come across them in my work or personal affairs. Most often, at best I received complete indifference. As often as not, I received hostility.
Mind you, I didn't hack anything. Just told a product owner or officer 'you have a problem here, with this (specifically this), that you might want to take look at'. For the sake of your customers. For the sake of the/your business's reputation, not to mention risk exposure.
I have very little sympathy for many of the people/agencies currently falling "victim". Especially not considering the budgets at their disposal. Where they are not outright incompetent, they've been practicing willful ignorance.
And then, we get yet more draconian laws as a lame, but destructive, attempt at a compensation mechanism.
Do your fucking jobs. Don't legislate (or "black ops") a "three monkeys" burden for the rest of us. The responsible parties (and not just "the techs") should be fired for nonfeasance, if not misfeasance or malfeasance.
Is this the beginning of world war 3?
Not that an assassination or bogus claims of WMD or the slicing of a captain's ear are any less stupider, but wouldn't it be funny if WW3 would start because of an April 1st joke done for the lulz?
Yup. The status quo / baseline of security online is terrible.
Slashdot rumor has it they've got themselves an Apache 0-day, but other hypothesizes have then SQL injecting or otherwise exploiting the webapps themselves.
Either way, the rate of attacks in the world hasn't changed, just these guys have gone back to the old way of yelling about what they accomplish rather than remaining silent.
They're using other means to root machines, though. My guess is that anybody that took the right classes in college could be doing exactly what they're doing now.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230425930457637...
So the past couple of weeks I can remember the following sites getting pwned:
All Sony sites. GMail. The I.M.F. Citibank Pron.com Nintendo Epic Games Senate.gov
From all the high profile services hacked one can start making the following hypothesis:
> There's a major hole in the linux kernel or OS and they're just having so much fun with it.
> They have infiltrated all of these organizations and have people from within opening the doors
> They are the X-Men of hacking
> They're the Chinese government X-Men of hacking
> Or security on all of these websites really sucks
(Keep adding your hypothesis)