SolarWinds Russian Hack - is it reasonable to believe it is real?

[The Grand Nudger]

The complicity of an admin goes to the allocation of resources, focus, and opportunity.

For example, multiple cyber security bills have been proposed and blocked due to their proximity to the russian issue. It's not certain that any action we might have taken would have prevented this, but in retrospect (and, for sane people, before the fact) it seems silly for an american president or party to shoot itself in the foot on security on account of legal or political embarrassment. It has become clear that simply saying the word russia is career suicide under this admin, and we already know that the rank and file had been ringing the fire alarm on this one, but we don't know how many non public and perhaps even specific warnings this admin ignored and/or plowed over.

It's reasonable to assume that this admins rejection of reality left it not so much incapable of dealing with the issue as dogmatically opposed to doing so. Textbook institutional failure. While it may not be likely that we catch all of this stuff before the fact - it's even more likely that we will fail to detect those things we would rather not find, or would refuse to see.

Beyond that, as far as personal accountability...as we all know, our president takes no responsibility.

[Fireball]

I am not sure what you mean, as I have mentioned I am a third-year computer science student.

Third year student.  I have 30 years of experience.  You don't know what you don't know.

Nor does he have the necessary security clearances.

[Spongebob]

As most of you probably know, American media is reporting about some Russian hackers having hacked the SolarWinds servers and inserted a spyware in some of the SolarWinds most popular programs, and no antivirus program detected that spyware for almost a year. Do you think it is true?

As a third year computer science student, such a story sounds rather implausible to me. I mean, those supposed Russian hackers would need to be more skilled than programmers in Microsoft, Google, Motorola or Mozilla.
To Microsoft, it has occurred a few times that their innocent programs get misdetected as malware. In April 2010, McAfee misdetected SVCHOST from Windows XP SP3 as malware, leaving perhaps around a hundred thousand machines unable to boot. In December 2010, AVG misdetected CSRSS from 64-bit Windows 7 as malware, also leaving many machines unable to boot. And there have been a few other such cases, though not as devastating. To Google, it has occurred a few times that BoringSSL (part of Chrome that ciphers HTTPS traffic) gets misdetected as ransomware, leaving a large part of the Internet ciphered using flawed algorithms. To Motorola, it has occurred that their Bluetooth drivers get misdetected as malware. To Mozilla, it has occurred many times that SpiderMonkey (the JavaScript engine of the Firefox browser, using some advanced JIT-compilation techniques) gets misdetected as a virus (because AVs think it is self-replicating code).
So, if the programmers working at Microsoft, Google, Motorola and Mozilla have trouble making innocent programs that does not get detected by some antivirus software as malware, is not it kind of absurd to claim there are Russian hackers who can make actual malware that does that? It is obviously incredibly hard to make a good JavaScript engine that won't be detected as malware by some AV (since not even Mozilla can do it), so it must be significantly harder to make actual malware that won't be detected as malware by any AV, right?

This is a joke, right?  Surely you don't really believe that malicious hackers don't have the skills to penetrate major US corporations and insert harmful software.  I can personally attest to at least half a dozen such events that caused serious harm to companies that I've worked for.  Iran's nuclear program was hacked about a decade ago and the damage set them back years.  And the hackers have only gotten better.  So yeah, hacking is as real as it gets.

Now, as to where the attacks are coming from, Russia is certainly a valid threat.  Russia has plenty to gain from disrupting US corporations.  Open war is not an option in the current world order, but make no mistake, we are at war with both Russia and China.  Corporate war is the battlefield now and both China and Russia are the aggressors and for the most part they are kicking our ass.  We've mostly just played defense so far.  Trumps idiotic trade war was his idea of retaliation, but that's done more harm to the US than to China.

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

So, wait? Let me get this straight SpongBob.

Cyberpunk 2077 and its 'Corporate wars' is the norm and not the outlier/fiction?

[Spongebob]

At work.

So, wait? Let me get this straight SpongBob.

Cyberpunk 2077 and its 'Corporate wars' is the norm and not the outlier/fiction?

I keep seeing articles about this Cyberpunk 2077 thing, but I don't know what it is.  And I don't really understand your question, probably because I don't know what CP2077 is.

[Angrboda]

At work.

So, wait? Let me get this straight SpongBob.

Cyberpunk 2077 and its 'Corporate wars' is the norm and not the outlier/fiction?

I keep seeing articles about this Cyberpunk 2077 thing, but I don't know what it is.  And I don't really understand your question, probably because I don't know what CP2077 is.

It's a recently released videogame. Apparently, the XBOX and Playstation ports suck, and there's some controversy regarding the company going back on its "crunch time" policy (crunch==massive overtime at the end)

[Peebothuhlu]

At work.

Yes, it's a game. Seems to work well enough on PC's. Sucks to own an inferior platform. (I kid)

It's basis is back in the 80's when 'Robo Cop', 'Max Headroom', 'Judge Dredd', 'Ghost in thd shell' and 'Blade Runner' were casting their dystopian predictions over an unknown technologically different future. Though still expecting the darker side of human nature to be prevalent if not prevailing.

Of course, another fourty years of tech advance shows we should all be terrified of the monsters awaiting us due to the evils of genetics being unleashed.

Dammit! "Godzilla" was NOT supposed to he a 'How to' manual!

Cheers.

[Spongebob]

I keep seeing articles about this Cyberpunk 2077 thing, but I don't know what it is.  And I don't really understand your question, probably because I don't know what CP2077 is.

It's a recently released videogame.  Apparently, the XBOX and Playstation ports suck, and there's some controversy regarding the company going back on its "crunch time" policy (crunch==massive overtime at the end)

OK, well in that context I still don't understand the question that was asked.  I suppose there's an aspect of corporate warfare within the game.  If so, I would say that's certainly an element of reality.  Companies do a lot of legal maneuvering to protect their intellectual property both from competing corporations and foreign governments.