This report from Fast Company illustrates why you should change the default passwords for any hardware or software that you buy and use:
Providers of critical infrastructure in the United States are doing a sloppy job of defending against cyber intrusions, the National Security Council tells Fast Company, pointing to recent Iran-linked attacks on U.S. water utilities that exploited basic security lapses.
The security council tells Fast Company it’s also aware of recent intrusions by hackers linked to China’s military at American infrastructure entities that include water and energy utilities in multiple states. Neither the Iran-linked or China-linked attacks affected critical systems or caused disruptions, according to reports.
“We’re seeing companies and critical services facing increased cyber threats from malicious criminals and countries,” Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging tech, tells Fast Company. The White House had been urging infrastructure providers to upgrade their cyber defenses before these recent hacks, but “clearly, by the most recent success of the criminal cyberattacks, more work needs to be done,” she says.
And:
Some of the compromised devices had been connected to the open internet with a default password of “1111,” federal authorities say, making it easy for hackers to find them and gain access. Fixing that “doesn’t cost any money,” Neuberger says, “and those are the kinds of basic things that we really want companies urgently to do.”
Really? Maybe they should have used 1234 as the password. Or perhaps 5678 as that would be harder to guess. In all seriousness, the is just wrong on so many levels. There needs to be way more accountability on this front because this is completely unacceptable.
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This entry was posted on December 24, 2023 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Fast Company Report Says Critical Infrastructure At Risk To Hackers Because Default Passwords Are Still In Use…. WTF?
This report from Fast Company illustrates why you should change the default passwords for any hardware or software that you buy and use:
Providers of critical infrastructure in the United States are doing a sloppy job of defending against cyber intrusions, the National Security Council tells Fast Company, pointing to recent Iran-linked attacks on U.S. water utilities that exploited basic security lapses.
The security council tells Fast Company it’s also aware of recent intrusions by hackers linked to China’s military at American infrastructure entities that include water and energy utilities in multiple states. Neither the Iran-linked or China-linked attacks affected critical systems or caused disruptions, according to reports.
“We’re seeing companies and critical services facing increased cyber threats from malicious criminals and countries,” Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging tech, tells Fast Company. The White House had been urging infrastructure providers to upgrade their cyber defenses before these recent hacks, but “clearly, by the most recent success of the criminal cyberattacks, more work needs to be done,” she says.
And:
Some of the compromised devices had been connected to the open internet with a default password of “1111,” federal authorities say, making it easy for hackers to find them and gain access. Fixing that “doesn’t cost any money,” Neuberger says, “and those are the kinds of basic things that we really want companies urgently to do.”
Really? Maybe they should have used 1234 as the password. Or perhaps 5678 as that would be harder to guess. In all seriousness, the is just wrong on so many levels. There needs to be way more accountability on this front because this is completely unacceptable.
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This entry was posted on December 24, 2023 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.