The NY Times today reports on an internet hacker, apparently from Iran, whose hacking skills seem to surpass those of others I have read about. He has been able to change the security certificates of websites, thus allowing himself to take over, for example, Google in Iran. This would then allow him to eavesdrop on every Gmail communication, denying privacy to those who might oppose the government and be organizing against it through Gmail messages.

Granted, I am the last person who understands what this guy is capable of doing, so I invite Oz, TY, or other computer whizzes to read the article and tell us what I am missing, or getting wrong.

One thing I am sure of: The internet is nowhere near as secure as some would have us believe!

Article on Baddest Guy on the Internet

The NY Times today reports on an internet hacker, apparently from Iran, whose hacking skills seem to surpass those of others I have read about. He has been able to change the security certificates of websites, thus allowing himself to take over, for example, Google in Iran. This would then allow him to eavesdrop on every Gmail communication, denying privacy to those who might oppose the government and be organizing against it through Gmail messages.

Granted, I am the last person who understands what this guy is capable of doing, so I invite Oz, TY, or other computer whizzes to read the article and tell us what I am missing, or getting wrong.

One thing I am sure of: The internet is nowhere near as secure as some would have us believe!

Article on Baddest Guy on the Internet

No REAL "hacker" would name himself that, unless it's brilliant misdirection. Also, the last paragraph is the most teling.

"DigiNotar, which is owned by an Illinois company called Vasco Data Security International, did not make the attack particularly difficult, according to a report by Fox-IT, a security company that was commissioned by the Dutch government to investigate. The company’s critical servers contained malicious software that should have been spotted by antivirus tools, the report said, and the servers related to certificates were all protected by just one weak password. DigiNotar did not respond to requests for comment last week. "

The security chain is only as strong as the weakest link, which was DigiNotar in this case.

Yeah, a lot of hacks work not because of the genius of the hacker but of the stupidity of the targets.

Last month the leading Internet security firm in the UK was hacked. People at first thought it must have been some genius.

Nope. Instead the hacker guessed, correctly, that while the tech people there would be really security conscious the human relationship department would not have been hired based on technical skills. So, they just sent emails with malware attached that looked like a work related Excell spreadsheet to everyone in human resources.

One 18 year old intern opened the mail and downloaded the file which then infected the entire system.