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You guys ever wonder why we have all these cybersecurity companies and yet none of them seem to ever turn up APT activity from NATO? I mean, we know they do it -- the NSA has had their tools for doing so leaked before. And yet, mysteriously, nobody ever seems to turn up artifacts from it being used in the wild, as if no evidence ever exists. But that can't be what's happening, we have so many threat tracker companies, surely one of them would be seeing something. I guess the US really is a great country if they have so much restraint as to not be using these things! Hahaha! ...jokes aside -- Lainchan, how much of the security landscape do you think goes on in darkness? Does anyone know where all of this "missing data" is ending up? If a campaign runs and not a single AV detects it, did it ever really happen?

Could be U.S. information blackouts. But some things are reported like when NSA tools were stolen by the Shadow Brokers group and we all got to use Eternal Blue. Like you OP, I wish we heard more about these things.

Corporate cybersecurity is heavily involved with the NSA and CISA. Individual professionals who speak out would certainly get arrested. I'm sure the cybersecurity industry in other countries is largely the same, they just aren't so heavily marketed (probably because they have to rely more on government resources). Sometimes they do get caught though. Remember Stuxnet?

Basically it's just hypocrisy, no real other reason you don't get reports on NATO activity.

>>18135 Ehh, not so sure about this. Maybe megacorp tier companies cooperate with the NSA/CISA but for the most part it's private companies turning to private companies for security. E.g. CrowdStrike. It is also possible that a lot of these "missing" reports would have been generated from companies that are based in NATO countries. These countries can use gag orders/devices similar to US national security letters to prevent dissemination of materials harmful to that country.

>>18138 >but for the most part it's private companies turning to private companies for security. E.g. CrowdStrike. Sure, I'm sure none of the experts at those private companies ever run into an NSA guy at a conference, get drunk, get recruited or threatened.

I would assume its because military people know how to keep their mouth shut(or shut up someone elses). They are also much less likely to have contact with civilian institutions of any kind. There is also the matter that they are military and rely less on intelligence but rather on brute force.

>>18098 What would happen if a security company calls out Western APT activity? They wouldn't be able to sell products and services to Western countries anymore. Who else are they going to sell to? Have you considered that the reason we hear about constant attacks from China/Russia/Iran is because these companies are not allowed to sell soykaf to those countries anyway.

>>18140 Doubtful. It's a pain in the ass to get a US clearance and the US government does not pay anywhere near what the private sector does. Pretending there is some secret MIB trawling conferences on private sector recruitment jobs is just you LARPing. If the US government wanted more cybersecurity hires it would pay them appropriately and exclude them from the usual red tape of public jobs (e.g. drug testing, no general schedule, opportunities for merit based promotions and bonuses, etc.)

>>18143 > It's a pain in the ass to get a US clearance and the US government does not pay anywhere near what the private sector does. They're not getting employed, dude. They're getting recruited into a spy network. They still have their old job and their job for the NSA probably amounts to "don't report on soykaf we do". The rewards are probably either a sense of pride in their country or occasional payments from a slush fund.

>>18143 I do know for a fact that the NSA massively recruits from academic CS and math departments. As in actual employment. Something like 25% of all graduating math PhD's get a job offer from the NSA. And they do go to major conferences.

>>18144 > The rewards are probably either a sense of pride in their country So at best nothing, hah

>>18146 the punishment for betrayal is probably a prison sentence, or at least quiet pressure to blacklist them from the industry.

>>18147 Russia and china do not frequently prosecute hackers. EU/UK/USA have harsh punishments for hackers. This factors into people unveiling APT or leaking information.

>>18146 >So at best nothing, hah The whole point of intelligence work is to break laws in other countries so there's opportunities to do and see soykaf you wouldn't in a private company. That is a large draw, especially for young people.

>>18150 I'm not sure how to feel about the idea of hooligans being the main recruitment demographic.

>>18138 >>18142 That's my point -- so much of the "security landscape" is defined by Western reports that we basically have no clue what Western activity looks like other than what's been leaked. Which, to be fair, is pretty good at mapping out what they've been doing, but the fact that multiple new attacks were completely born from people looking at the leaks and getting ideas means I'm terrified at the thought at what they might be doing now. Makes me feel like we're always a few steps behind the big players.

>>18148 I can't speak for Russia, but China probably prosecutes hackers way more than you think they do. People have been un-personed there for way less, and the CCP does it's best to have absolute control over what information its citizens have access to. I sincerely doubt that the government that derezzed Winnie the Pooh because their leader got butthurt over memes wouldn't be rounding up hackers left and right. You hear more bad things about Western nations because they're ironically less likely to cover it up once it becomes known. The US persecuted Edward Snowden, but they didn't try to erase him from existence outright. If things worked here like they do in authoritarian nations, he would've been stricken from history, along with every public figure who supported him.

>>18168 I know they tend to look the other way when the vpn outside the firewall to brew soykaf, only if you criticize the CCP

I think a researcher that published Five Eyes laundry would get blacklisted from Western employment pretty quickly. There's an obvious osmosis between cybersec and intelligence agencies, this can be used as a punitive tool. Russia and China sec *may* offer compelling packages, but how many people would really want to move to another corner of the world for good?

>>18174 Moving to Russia or China to escape the evils of Western intelligence agencies is like switching from meth to krokodil.

>>18098 NATO has secret stashes for their malware & backdoors, and information gathered with them. Little is known about these stashes, but we can probably be sure that they are at least partly centralized. You'll probably never find one, and if it's leaked you'll never know how real it is. >Where does it go? US intelligence and five eyes. All the data of the world goes to the US one way or another. Use Microsoft? Apple? Google? Kek. >>18136 It's not just hypocrisy, it's a conspiracy >>18145 I don't doubt it but I do doubt your numbers