[Cryptography] North Korea and Sony

[Tom Mitchell]

One unstated component of the Sony attack is that the day before the release
there was no clue (public) that the attack had gained any data and traction.
That presents a question... "Who is next?"

I think this is important because Sony is only one company.
Canary in the coal mine perhaps.

An attack like this involved a collection of attack tools as well
as some specific attention to apply them and gather information.
Not the work of one individual that is sure and some funding
is implicit.

The collection of attack tools still has viability and with  little more
motivation beyond curiosity or arrogance could be employed
again and again.

Sony is a smart company at many levels and it is difficult for me
to believe that IT at Sony was any less capable than IT at any
of the top 5000 companies in the world or any of the IT departments
of the 190+ nations of the United Nation.

Side doors need to be locked and strengthened.
Known bugs need to be fixed (large and small).
OS design and economics should not nurture a virus removal
and detection industry that then depends on customers to purchase
and install after market "stuff".

Bug reporting bounties are just too small and engineering management ethics
with
regard to bug fixes broken.

The inability to repair software by the end user community is also a
problem.
I should save problem that for another day.









-- 
  T o m    M i t c h e l l
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