Page 23 - ARUBA TODAY

A23
TECHNOLOGY Thursday 16 March 2017

Cascading effect: One attack led to another at Yahoo

ANICK JESDANUN it. Hackers used malware
MICHAEL LIEDTKE and information from the
MAE ANDERSON user database to manu-
AP Technology Writers facture fake cookies. To
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Yahoo, it then appeared
Russian hackers working that a hacker was the au-
with Russian spies didn’t thorized user.
crack Yahoo security all at That method worked so
once. long as users didn’t change
Instead, according to an their passwords after early
account offered by U.S. of- November 2014. Hackers
ficials, they methodically used this technique to tar-
made their way deeper get more than 6,500 user
into Yahoo’s network over accounts.
the space of months — There was nothing par-
maybe years. ticularly fancy about what
That allowed them to the Russian hackers did,
forge technological skele- said Shuman Ghosema-
ton keys that would unlock jumder, who used to fight
many Yahoo accounts, fraud at Google and is
steal personal information now chief technology of-
and then use that data to ficer for Shape Security. But
break into other email ser- it still doesn’t look as bad
vices used by their targets, as it might have had the
U.S. officials said in an- This Jan. 14, 2015, file photo shows a sign outside Yahoo’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. heist been engineered by
nouncing charges against Associated Press a clever teenager or an-
four Russians . SECOND-BIGGEST BREACH it took some two years for normally uses to authorize other digital burglar work-
That Department of Justice “We are in a cyberwar and Yahoo to disclose the initial users as they log in. ing without the backing of
indictment fills in some of our government hasn’t wo- attack. Had Yahoo taken The second was an internal a foreign government, ex-
the blanks surrounding a ken up and done anything more aggressive steps — tool for editing information perts said.
massive security breach about it,” said security ana- for instance, asking users in the user database. “The CIA can’t even pro-
that occurred in 2014, but lyst Avivah Litan of Gartner to change their passwords, By December 2014, Ya- tect against some of these
Yahoo didn’t reveal until six Inc. or even expiring the pass- hoo executives and law- guys, so my sympathies are
months ago. But it doesn’t Although the Yahoo attack words and forcing users to yers knew hackers tied to with Yahoo,” Litan said. “I
answer why it took Yahoo compromised more than enter new ones — it might a foreign government had don’t know how good Ya-
so long to grasp its serious- 500 million user accounts, have prevented some of gained access to some of hoo’s security was, but it is
ness or why it waited so the hackers appeared the damage. its users’ personal informa- really hard to detect these
long to tell its users — or Ve- mainly interested in sifting USER ACCOUNTS tion, but didn’t dig deeper nation-state hackers.”
rizon, which is paying $4.5 through the email of Rus- Hackers got their initial ac- into the incident, accord- Yahoo has already paid
billion for Yahoo operations sian and U.S. government cess to Yahoo’s network ing to a report released a steep price. Verizon
now tainted by the biggest officials, Russian journalists around early 2014, al- earlier this month by the extracted a $350 million
security lapses in internet and employees of financial though it’s not clear exact- company’s board. Yahoo discount on the initial pur-
history. firms and other businesses, ly how. By the end of the merely notified 26 users chase price for Yahoo’s
Yahoo declined to com- according to the indict- year, according to the in- that they there information online services after initially
ment beyond a statement ment. dictment, they had made may have been taken and demanding a $925 million
thanking law enforcement When they weren’t spying, two valuable finds. also consulted with law en- reduction for the damage
for its efforts. the hackers also tried to The first was a backup copy forcement. done. Yahoo still faces
It’s also not clear whether make money on the side of Yahoo’s user database, FOOL ME ONCE, FOOL ME dozens of lawsuits.
the Russian hackers and with petty scams. In one current as of early Novem- TWICE MAKING MONEY
spies involved in the Yahoo ruse detailed in the indict- ber 2014. It contained a lot Hackers accessed user ac- While Russian intelligence
break-in were also involved ment, the hackers are ac- of information that could counts by fooling Yahoo officials were interested
in other recent hacking at- cused of manipulating Ya- be used to reset passwords into thinking they had al- only in a limited number
tacks, such as the leak of hoo’s search results to drive and gain entry to Yahoo ready signed in. Compa- of accounts, hackers used
embarrassing emails from traffic to a company selling accounts, such as phone nies like Yahoo typically use access to Yahoo’s network
the Democratic National erectile dysfunction drugs numbers, answers to secu- bits of data called cookies for their own financial gain.
Committee during the 2016 in exchange for commis- rity questions and recovery to let you stay signed into Besides the erectile dys-
election. U.S. intelligence sions. email addresses used to an account via a web function scheme, the
agencies have previously The severity of that breach, reset forgotten passwords. browser. This is how you hackers also searched
said they believe that Rus- the second worst in inter- The database also con- keep Gmail, for instance, email accounts for credit
sian hackers were involved net history, was most likely tained cryptographically open even if you close card information and elec-
in those breaches, too. magnified by the fact that scrambled data Yahoo your browser and restart tronic gift cards.q