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Friday, November 16, 2018

Google Cloud is Busted by Russians and Chinese

Perhaps it is a good thing that Google employees convinced their management not to do business with the Pentagon, thereby pulling out of participating in a $10 billion cloud computing contract called JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure).

On November 12th, Google's services were hit by a massive hack allegedly carried out by Russians, Chinese, and Nigerians. The hack redirected all of Google's search, business, and cloud computing operations through servers run in these countries using a hack called the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). This gave the hackers unprecedented access to extremely sensitive information on users and direct access to any data that was not independently encrypted (one presumes that the typical computer network security protocols were automatically compromised by being run through servers that did not belong to Google). Even more critically, it gave the three countries complete control over all of Google's operations and data. While the hack only lasted about an hour and a half, it demonstrated in clear terms just how vulnerable computer networks are and showed that the critical infrastructure could have been taken down, had the hackers wanted to do so.

For the record, the Google Cloud and Google's G-Suite business services have good security practices, and the Google Cloud in particular has some security features that are quite advanced. But that did not stop the BGP hack, because BGP hacks exploit the IP addresses and information routing addresses that are built into the modern internet. Worse yet, computer experts say that current technology can't stop a BGP hack.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are inexpensive products such as BOXCRYPTER that will automatically encrypt everything before it goes to the cloud. Would these same victims store their data on their neighbor’s computer in the clear?

Anonymous said...

Immediate ban on all Russian Vodka and Chinese food!

Rebel Without a Clue said...

It never ceases to amaze me just how many businesses, big and small, that have no concept of security. They are just wait to be hacked. And for a company like googlGto get it should be a wake up call.

Anonymous said...

This is typical, and will continue to happen since everything is run or will soon be run by computers... Even your cars can be hacked now because they have internet connections to track you, and of course for the kids, the wifi connection...

This happens, becasue it is new tech in cars and so its bound to be tested by hackers, but also, these ass hats in power think they have so much power that no one would ever dare to try and hack anything... which is why everything is so easily hack-able... They wait for bad shit to happen then decide to fix it... but don't think they don't knwo about it before they create the tech... Also, it doesn't help that the CIA software they use to hack, got released to the public some how and now anyone can have to or use it if the can get their hands on it...

But hey, as long as you have your new iphone or all of that bs you don't care right?

Anonymous said...

We need get rid of google and other tech group and use the new system to change and plus they hack again just planted an nasty booty trap type like virus and it will destroy the their power system and banks will kill their computer's and AI for good.