back to article LA Times knocked out, HackerOne slips up and – amazingly – router security still sucks

Welcome to 2019, just a few days into the year and we already have Chromecast chaos, Skype backdoors, and a Weather Channel privacy suit. We also have plenty of other news to catch up on. Stop the presses! LA Times grinds to a halt over ransomware Most of us made a point of unplugging from the news over the holidays, but for …

  1. W.S.Gosset

    > Tardy patching

    That's nice. Nothing sadder than a damaged tardy bear.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Water bears* are quite difficult to damage.

      * Tardigrades

  2. FatGerman

    And the award for the sentence with the least information in it goes to ...

    "which may be as little as a few user records or, at worst, our entire database"

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Something's fishy

    "The group calls itself Candiru, after the small fish in the Amazon which, legend has it, can swim up a stream of urine and embed itself in a victim's urethra using a barbed head."

    And then there is Cymothoa, a small parasite that enters fish through the gills, and then attaches itself to the fish's tongue.

    (Or injects shellcode into 'nix processes)

    1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Something's fishy

      They might hope that they are rather better at it than the Candiru fish, of which only one documented case has been recorded and which is considered somewhat unreliable: "When subsequently interviewed, Spotte stated that even if a person were to urinate while "submerged in a stream where candiru live", the odds of that person being attacked by candiru are "(a)bout the same as being struck by lightning while simultaneously being eaten by a shark.""

      1. David 132 Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: Something's fishy

        the odds of that person being attacked by candiru are "(a)bout the same as being struck by lightning while simultaneously being eaten by a shark."

        You insensitive bastard, that happened to my wife and sister only last week.

        Fortunately, she survived.

        1. sanmigueelbeer
          Happy

          Re: Something's fishy

          Fortunately, she survived.

          Who survived? Your wife or sister?

          I will get me coat, thanks.

          1. David 132 Silver badge

            Re: Something's fishy

            Um, that was the joke. Maybe I should have been less subtle.

          2. Oengus
            Joke

            Re: Something's fishy

            She is one and the same... We keep it in the family in Tasmania...

        2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Something's fishy

          Fortunately, she survived.

          I find this story dubious. Surely anyone who's struck by lightning while being attacked by a shark gains shark-based superpowers. I'd expect at least the proportional strength of a shark and the ability to have a cartilage skeleton rather than bones.

    2. ibmalone

      Re: Something's fishy

      And then there is Cymothoa, a small parasite that enters fish through the gills, and then attaches itself to the fish's tongue.

      For anyone having difficulty staying awake: http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-a-parasitic-isopod.html

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Something's fishy

        Kind of a tame article. I suggest a Google Images search for "parasitic isopod". Then read Wong's This Book is Full of Spiders.

  4. sanmigueelbeer
    Mushroom

    I don't know which is worse

    the issue was traced back to a ransomware infection that had managed to bork the systems that link the papers editorial office with those of the printing plants.

    I don't know which is worst: This or the one that affected the South Korean government which discovered the "list" of North Korean defectors and their new identities have been lifted without anyone knowing until it was (long) gone.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    Mysterious malware attack

    Late last week, a mysterious malware attack crippled key parts of the Times infrastructure

    I don't think it is mysterious to the rest of use. What is isn't is the competion of how to talk about malware without mentioning Microsoft Windows.

    Once Ryuk gets into a network, it automatically spreads from computer to computer, node to node

    The only solution is to ban ‘computer’s on your network.

  6. Gene Cash Silver badge

    Tribune Company

    Like The Sun, but less journalism.

    I had to recently take legal action to stop them from throwing their trash in my yard.

  7. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "Luas technicians [..] are working to restore the site,"

    Why are they still working on it ? Don't they have a backup of the site in its functional state that they can upload ? Don't they ?

    If they wanted to explore the infection, I would think downloading the entire site onto an inactive disk then plugging said disk into an isolated server would be the thing to do, but right now I would have wiped the site entirely and restored from backup. That shouldn't take a week. What is it I don't know that prevents them from doing so ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Luas technicians [..] are working to restore the site,"

      Not involved but IMHO:

      From the article, it sounds like the backup would also contain the vulnerable unmaintained code. So, the site would be up, but vulnerable...

      They are probably working on a new site without any unmaintained code.

      As the vulnerability was in unmaintained code, the vuln wouldn’t be fixed so better focus developer cycles on bringing the new site up.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Military, calm

    "The military was also called in to bring a calm to the situation."

    That seems like an oxymoron but I believe that there have been a few occasions where this has actually happened.

    1. Nolveys

      Re: Military, calm

      "Right! Everyone can relax, we're here to calm the situation! Men, fire at random in all directions!"

      Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat...

  9. Howard Hanek
    WTF?

    Oh Look!

    Your drone broke my shotgun shell......again.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Did the drone(s) even exist?

    Will we ever know?

    1. GnuTzu

      Re: Did the drone(s) even exist?

      Surely, someone took pics, and/or they showed up on security cameras. It'd be sad if no one bothered to capture evidence.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wrong about google

    "Google is usually thought to be better than most at getting stuff fixed"

    No, google host the most malware in the world on the play store, never notifies people when they remove an app for malware. No other company in the world gets away with that. They don't fix stuff, they sweep it under the rug when it's broken.

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