Bonum Certa Men Certa

British Government Owned by Crackers Thanks to Microsoft

London



Summary: Microsoft dependency is said to be behind poor decisions from the GCHQ and the Tories, whose Windows site is said to have just been compromised by 4chan

Conficker is back in the headlines. Yesterday it had the following in the British press:

  1. Don't stone the DNS heretics
    I recently asked Rodney Joffe, chief technologist at Neustar, four-decade industry veteran and chair of the Conficker working group, about why he founded UltraDNS and implemented IP Anycast.

    [...]

    On October 21, 2002, a DDoS attack was launched against the root name servers. The ones that survived were those that had quietly switched in the background to using Anycast. When a more powerful DDoS against the root servers occurred in 2007, only the two root servers that had yet to switch to Anycast were laid low.


  2. ZeuS baddies copy Conficker tactics
    Licat infects .EXE, .DLL and .HTML files on infected systems. The malware also generates around 800 pseudo-random domains a day, which it contacts in order to attempt to download new malware code.


  3. Hackers claim to pwn Conservative Party website
    Hackers claim to have pwned the official website belonging to the UK Conservative Party.

    Details on the 4chan website, where they discussed the supposed attack, were sketchy, but they claimed the site was vulnerable to a SQL injection exploit. An email to The Reg claimed the site had been defaced, but at time of writing, there was no proof, and the site appeared to be working normally.


The Tory Web site is Microsoft-based. Glyn Moody complains that the Government Communications Headquarters is also clueless with its attitude towards Microsoft's stack:

Instead of this blind faith in ever-bigger Patch Tuesdays, have those boffins at GCHQ ever thought of turning to software like GNU/Linux that is rather less vulnerable to all those nasty, malicious emails in the first place?

The fact that GCHQ makes no mention of this option means one of two things. Either it is terminally clueless, and we can expect the country's computing infrastructure to be taken out on a regular basis in the future (hello Stuxnet 2.0), or else GCHQ is actually being dead cunning here - pretending to be terminally clueless by wittering on about Microsoft patches to mislead attackers, but secretly swapping out all those vulnerable Windows systems as fast as they can, so that the infrastructure is inherently more secure.


For more about Stuxnet see:

  1. Ralph Langner Says Windows Malware Possibly Designed to Derail Iran's Nuclear Programme
  2. Windows Viruses Can be Politically Motivated Sometimes
  3. Who Needs Windows Back Doors When It's So Insecure?
  4. Windows Insecurity Becomes a Political Issue
  5. Windows, Stuxnet, and Public Stoning
  6. Stuxnet Grows Beyond Siemens-Windows Infections
  7. Has BP Already Abandoned Windows?
  8. Reports: Apple to Charge for (Security) Updates
  9. Windows Viruses Can be Politically Motivated Sometimes
  10. New Flaw in Windows Facilitates More DDOS Attacks
  11. Siemens is Bad for Industry, Partly Due to Microsoft
  12. Microsoft Security Issues in The British Press, Vista and Vista 7 No Panacea
  13. Microsoft's Negligence in Patching (Worst Amongst All Companies) to Blame for Stuxnet
  14. Microsoft Software: a Darwin Test for Incompetence
  15. Bad September for Microsoft Security, Symantec Buyout Rumours
  16. Microsoft Claims Credit for Failing in Security
  17. Many Windows Servers Being Abandoned; Minnesota Goes the Opposite Direction by Giving Microsoft Its Data
  18. Windows Users Still Under Attack From Stuxnet, Halo, and Zeus
  19. EU Concerns Highlight Need to Remove Windows From the Network
  20. Guest Article: Windows NT and the Deepwater Horizon


It's no surprise that the British government is deluded about Microsoft security when the MSBBC publishes Microsoft propaganda and the same Microsoft propaganda comes from Lance Whitney of Microsoft TechNet Magazine. By controlling coverage Microsoft sells the impression that those security troubles are not its fault and not serious either.

GCHQ

Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM's CEO Roasted, Sizzled and Grilled for Dumb and Inconsistent Vapourware Promises
It looks like being a chronic liar is what it takes to lead the company once synonymous with computing
Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
 
Links 11/06/2025: More Vulnerabilities Found in 'Smart' Phones, China Extends Reach in the Pacific
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/06/2025: Grain and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Links 11/06/2025: "Quantum" Hype From IBM, US Closer to Martial Law, and “The Nation” Celebrates Milestone
Links for the day
IBM's Goal Is Not (and Never Was) Computer Users' Freedom
More than 1.5 decades ago I found IBM to be an "ally of convenience" because of OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Wayland Shows the IBM/Red Hat Way of Doing Things
IBM is trying to 'kill' X
GitHub is Proprietary, Controlled by Microsoft, and GPL Violation Warehouse
"IRS tax filing software [will be] released to the people as free software" ... In general this is good news
Slopfarm Catastrophe
Seems like BetaNews (or BetaNoise) has just suffered a major data loss and restored the site from a week-old backup
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VIII: Illegal Working Conditions
How many people need to die for these people to get their massive salaries?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 10, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 10, 2025
Links 10/06/2025: Apple Hype and Physical Attacks on Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/06/2025: Loon Lake, Farming, and Forth
Links for the day
Links 10/06/2025: Jaws at 50 and US Democracy Crushed Very Rapidly (Martial Law Seems Imminent)
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VII: Washing Their Hands After Corruption and Abuse
"Tragedy or comedy?"
Culling Bad RSS Feeds of Bad Sites
Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater
If 'Microsoft v Techrights' is Dealt With by a 'Microsoft Court' (or a Court Outsourced to Microsoft)
More on that later
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 09, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 09, 2025
Gemini Protocol Turns Six in 10 Days From Now
If you haven't tried it yet, then give it a go today
Live as You Preach
technology is fast becoming dysphoric
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Addition Addiction and Nitride
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025