NSA Says It Foiled Plot To Destroy US Economy Through Malware 698
mrspoonsi writes "Business Insider Reports: The National Security Agency described for the first time a cataclysmic cyber threat it claims to have stopped On Sunday's '60 Minutes.' Called a BIOS attack, the exploit would have ruined, or 'bricked,' computers across the country, causing untold damage to the national and even global economy. Even more shocking, CBS goes as far as to point a finger directly at China for the plot — 'While the NSA would not name the country behind it, cyber security experts briefed on the operation told us it was China.' The NSA says it closed this vulnerability by working with computer manufacturers. Debora Plunkett, director of cyber defense for the NSA: One of our analysts actually saw that the nation state had the intention to develop and to deliver — to actually use this capability — to destroy computers."
Re:We have all the evidence! (Score:5, Informative)
and this lame vague shit is the best they can do.
100% of the NSA budget needs to be given to NASA.
A bricked computer isn't the biggest threat (Score:5, Informative)
A more dangerous cyber threat would be malware that collects all the users personal information and stores it until the malware writer is ready to use it against the victim.
Oops!
Re:Not buying this (Score:5, Informative)
China holds a huge amount of our debt.
Our debt is around 17 trillion dollars. Of that 17 trillion, China owns around 1.2 trillion. A large number for sure, but not something I'd say is a rather small percentage of the total debt. The debt owned by the public equates to 12 trillion which is something I'd call huge.
National debt of the United States [wikipedia.org]
Re:Not buying this (Score:5, Informative)
China holds a huge amount of our debt. They want us to buy their stuff and to borrow money from them. Why cripple our economy? Or, even worse, why do something like this that will point a finger back to them and stir up the pot against them? (and possibly lad to embargos, and so on)
Ya, it makes no sense. Like if I pulled up to the Starbucks drive-thru to order a venti double-skinny mocha latteachio with no foam and instead they went all Goldfinger on my car. You don't try to kill your best customer.
Likewise if this was some freelance/rogue/criminal/terrorist operation inside China, I'd think they (the Chinese) would be motivated to foil it themselves for the same reasons.
The NSA should have cooked up a more plausible bogus plot to foil, but instead they don't even respect us enough to make up a believable lie.
Re:Guys seriously please dont hate us! (Score:5, Informative)
I thought it was odd too untli I read the article and realised they were not talking about a real threat, they were talking about an analysts scenario. To quote:
"One of our analysts actually saw that the nation state had the intention to develop and to deliver — to actually use this capability — to destroy computers."
So basically this is a fear-mongering story since if the country in question had had the intention and capability to deploy such an attack, it would have been SUCCESSFUL. Only a small proportion on PCs would have been "fixed" if they had "worked with computer manufacturers".
They really do think everyone is stupid don't they?
Bullshit! (Score:4, Informative)
This is just bullshit! If they stopped this attack by "closed this vulnerability by working with computer manufacturers", this would only fix the vulnerability on new computers built after the fix was created, but not on machines already produced and sold.
This sounds more like a PR campaign to garner positive support after all the negative impact of the releases of the documents Edward Snowden leaked.
Re:NSA failed to halt subprime lending, though. (Score:5, Informative)
Recently? The intelligence agencies were doing all manner of inappropriate things throughout the 50s, 60s and in the 70s until the Church Committee was created to investigate. Their gross abuses of power during those decades was the entire point of why the FISA legislation was passed. And it was not to create the rubber-stamp court that we have now.
It's amazing how 9/11 has made so many people forget the rampant abuse of power in the NSA's and CIA's history.
Re:Guys seriously please dont hate us! (Score:3, Informative)
Yes.they do. And they're mostly right. there's only a majority of 535 people they need to convince though.
Re:Expect these claims to be walked back (Score:5, Informative)
I suspect the those pesky real journalists probably don't enough about the tech side of things to ask the questions they really need to be asking in order to debunk this.
The 60 Minutes piece has already been trashed by multiple outlets:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/12/60-minutes-hearts-the-nsa.html [nymag.com]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/16/nsa-surveillance-60-minutes-cbs-facts [theguardian.com]
http://www.thewire.com/national/2013/12/60-minutes-nsa-good-snowden-bad/356174/ [thewire.com]
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/why-did-em-60-minutes-em-let-the-head-of-the-nsa-fool-its-audience/282377/ [theatlantic.com]
http://www.thenation.com/blog/177598/sad-decline-60-minutes-continues-weeks-nsa-whitewash [thenation.com]
Re:NSA failed to halt subprime lending, though. (Score:5, Informative)
We stood idly by while Saddam expended huge quantities of chemical weapons.
Personally that may be true. On a bigger scale, we (the United States) provided [truth-out.org] helped them deploy the chemical weapons.
Our governments (US and UK) knew very well what Saddam had, and what Saddam was capable of.
We certainly should have known what Saddam had and was capable of. First, we helped [globalpolicy.org]put the Ba'ath party in to power. During the Iran / Iraq war, we helped them financially and with intelligence information [gwu.edu]. Then, we sold [counterpunch.org] the precursors of chemical weapons to them and provided reconnaissance intelligence [wikipedia.org] that was used in their deployment. Why else would Donald Rumsfeld [gwu.edu] be smiling as he shook Saddams hand in 1983?
You will note, I hope, that I've said nothing in Saddam Hussein's defense. I have ONLY pointed out how dishonest our own governments are.
And here is more evidence supporting that supposition.