News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on U.S. tightens export controls on items used in surveillance of private citizens. Parent comment

Re:U.S. tightens export controls on items used in surveillan... by rtkwe on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @06:16PM (#28937527)
There's also the issue that there's no mechanism to force companies to keep servers up to date or face consequences so it's only possible to really do half the work. Blue teams could find every vulnerability out there but you'd still have companies running old versions or refusing to put out patches to their customers (and customers not updating devices deployed in their home).
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:U.S. tightens export controls on items used in surveillan... by rocqua on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:15AM (#28940985)
The mechanism has sort of revealed itself recently, and it is not a net positive: ransomware.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:U.S. tightens export controls on items used in surveillan... by rtkwe on Thursday October 21, 2021 @04:17PM (#28950299)
True enough I guess, though it’s definitely not what I’d pick. Tangentially I wonder why ransomware hasn’t been a thing for longer. Was it an issue of how to do payments that crypto solved?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:U.S. tightens export controls on items used in surveillan... by rocqua on Friday October 22, 2021 @04:26AM (#28954848)
The consensus seems to be that it is crypto making receiving the ransom easier, and Russia (and other jurisdictions) giving ransomware crews free reign.

I think the second one might be more important, because it is generally known who the big crews are, and it is actually easy to screw up the opsec on crypto.

[ Parent | on HN ]