Effect of computer hacking on investors and customers

Gringotts Bank said:

Yes, but I remember wealthy people and public figures were never listed in phone books. Silent numbers.

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That's true but the default is you were in it (assuming you had a phone) unless you specifically sought not to be. That put the vast majority in it in practice.

Smurf1976 said:

That's true but the default is you were in it (assuming you had a phone) unless you specifically sought not to be. That put the vast majority in it in practice.

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one house i shared with a couple ( the guy went on to be a computer professional , later ) the phone was listed in his mother's maiden name ( as was legal since she had separated from the guy's father , and he was underage when moving into renting the house )

With the recent prolonged Optus outage the CEO reported that it was unlikely to be caused by hackers then later, reported it was a "technical network fault" but with no definitive reason given as to why, I'm left to ponder.
Was this indeed a hacking attempt?

AFR reported a bodgy routing table within the BGP (Border Gateway Protocol aka three-napkin protocol) as a possible cause. This lead me to think about BGP hijacking and in general, about Software-defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) systems.

BGP Security

Security​

By design, routers running BGP accept advertised routes from other BGP routers by default. This allows for automatic and decentralized routing of traffic across the Internet, but it also leaves the Internet potentially vulnerable to accidental or malicious disruption, known as BGP hijacking. Due to the extent to which BGP is embedded in the core systems of the Internet, and the number of different networks operated by many different organizations which collectively make up the Internet, correcting this vulnerability (such as by introducing the use of cryptographic keys to verify the identity of BGP routers) is a technically and economically challenging problem.[43]

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SD-WAN

SD-WAN architecture​

Traditional WANs based on conventional routers were never designed for the cloud. They typically require backhauling all traffic, including cloud-destined traffic, from branch offices to a hub or headquarters data center where advanced security inspection services can be applied. The delay caused by backhaul impairs application performance resulting in a poor user experience and lost productivity.

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A quick looksee over at The Hacker News and one reads that malicious actors are very quick to attack any and all vulnerabilities, coming up with new ways to impliment their nefarious activities. Especially with regards to cyber warfare so it's no stretch to assume that state-founded actors are constantly pecking away at our digital/cyber spaces.

Yes, I may be reading too much into the Optus stuff up but without an actual reason why, conjecture prevails.

Craton said:

With the recent prolonged Optus outage the CEO reported that it was unlikely to be caused by hackers then later, reported it was a "technical network fault" but with no definitive reason given as to why, I'm left to ponder.
Was this indeed a hacking attempt?

AFR reported a bodgy routing table within the BGP (Border Gateway Protocol aka three-napkin protocol) as a possible cause. This lead me to think about BGP hijacking and in general, about Software-defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) systems.

BGP Security



SD-WAN



A quick looksee over at The Hacker News and one reads that malicious actors are very quick to attack any and all vulnerabilities, coming up with new ways to impliment their nefarious activities. Especially with regards to cyber warfare so it's no stretch to assume that state-founded actors are constantly pecking away at our digital/cyber spaces.

Yes, I may be reading too much into the Optus stuff up but without an actual reason why, conjecture prevails.

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Yes I would think hacking terrorist as well, if it was a technical error, updating software, uploading new routing tables etc, it does not take that long to reverse, maybe a few hours at most to propagate data.
The fact at 3:30 am my phone was down and then only fixed 10+ hours later signal to me that the network fell, it took a while to wake up the indian local support team.
And note 3:30 am means 9:30 pm in Bangalore..good timing to ensure limited availability of support both there and in Oz ..
But Optus can not admit hacking as actually the cause or it could even hint at worse issue and maybe even loss leak of data.
And hacking tend to be blamed to lower resources and outsourcing whereas a technical error might lead to even more outsourcing.
We are such a fragile society.imagine an Optus attack sync with a telstra one ,or one major coms and the power grid.
When Optus was down, you can bet that telstra was used to actually enable communications and sorting the problem within Optus, if only to contact and bring personnel back to the office in emergency.
Overlay both down and the country is down for 3 days while pigeon messages ..sorry drone messaging becomes the new norm.
Interesting collapse of society

Now it's shipping:

Goods coming in and out of Australia are at a stand still because a major port operator DP World has shut down land operations in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Fremantle.

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@qldfrog
Whether lone wolves or criminals out for financial gain or state based cyber warfare, black hat hackers are all terrorists in my book.

The chatter points to Optus cost cutting and using a single "back bone" instead of three. I doubt if this is the case but hey, the bean counters know best right?

Looking at Russia and it's attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, like power, speaks volumes.

Geez, they're already targeting Optus customers as per ScamWatch

@Smurf1976
As reported on news.com.au, I noted hacked DP World is an international stevedore and is Dubai based.

That news post also includes:

The hack follows another cybersecurity incident at Melbourne cryptocurrency exchange Coinspot on Thursday, in which more than $2m was taken from accounts.

Another data breach in September caused the information of nearly 200,000 Pizza Hut customers to be leaked.

Bookstore chain Dymocks also disclosed a data breach, in which customer data “may have been compromised,” also took place in September.

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With the silly festive season just about on us, the hackers are in full flight so extra vigilance is a must!