Episode 160 - The Lacklustre Performance Vol 2 Episode
The Host Unknown Podcast
The Unforgivable Cost of Data Surveillance
The Australian government has been accused of using data to target vulnerable people. Jeff believes that if civil servants knew something was wrong, they should have done more about it. He says he hopes the prosecution will follow through with their plans for 'Billy Big Balls' action.
This week in InfoSec
With content liberated from the “today in infosec” twitter account and further afield
13th July 2001: Code Red Worms its Way into the Internet
The Code Red worm is released onto the Internet. Targeting Microsoft’s IIS web server, Code Red had a significant effect on the Internet due to the speed and efficiency of its spread. Much of this was due to the fact that IIS was often enabled by default on many installations of Windows NT and Windows 2000. However, Code Red also affected many other systems with web servers, mostly by way of side-effect, exacerbating the overall impact of the worm, ensuring its place in history among the many malware outbreaks infecting Windows systems in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
10th July 1995: After writing the initial version of the yet-to-be-released SSH, Tatu Ylonen emailed a request to IANA for SSH to be assigned port 22, receiving approval/assignment mere hours later.
https://www.ssh.com/academy/ssh/port
https://twitter.com/todayininfosec/status/1281629953360982016
]
Rant of the Week
An Australian government initiative described by the then-minister in charge as "a great example of the Government using technology" has been described by a Royal Commission as "a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals."
The initiative came to be known as "Robodebt" – reflecting its automated matching of data sets and issuance of debt notices to welfare recipients.
But the algorithm Australia's government used to calculate the debts was based on massively and tragically incorrect assumptions.
Australians are eligible for welfare payments if their income dips below certain levels in a given two-week period. In the early 2010s, the government of the day decided to ensure that welfare recipients hadn't received more payments than they were due, with data sharing between welfare and tax agencies informing the process.
To assess whether proper payments had been made, the relevant department averaged recipients' income across a year.
Which was a huge mistake.
Billy Big Balls of the Week
Indian developer fired 90 percent of tech support team, outsourced the job to AI
Here's a story from the Department of Massive and Terrifying Irony: a startup Indian software developer struggled to afford its customer support team, so outsourced it – to an AI chatbot that was more efficient and cheaper.
The developer is called Dukaan and offers a platform it promises allows rapid deployment of online stores.
Founder Suumit Shah took to Twitter to reveal that the change to robo-service saw time to first response fall – from a minute and 44 seconds to zero. Resolution time plunged as well – from two hours and 13 minutes when humans were doing it, down to three minutes and 12 seconds with AI on the job. Overall customer support costs dropped by around 85 percent.
Shah detailed how Dukaan struggled to hire people with the skills to work as support agents.
"It's like – Lionel Messi doing a full time job at Decathlon, though the theory has some merit, but is ultimately flawed," he wrote.
It is that time of the show where we head to our news sources over at the Infosec PA newswire who have been very busy bringing us the latest and greatest security news from around the globe!
Industry News
Martin Lewis Shocked at Deepfake Investment Scam Ad
Central Bankers Develop Framework For Securing Digital Currencies
EU Adopts New US Data Privacy Agreement
Clop: Behind MOVEit Lies a Loud, Adaptable and Persistent Threat Group
Ethical Hackers Reveal How They Use Generative AI
Fewer Than 100 Scammers Responsible For Global Email Extortion
White House Publishes Plan to Implement US National Cybersecurity Strategy
Mandiant Unveils Russian GRU's Cyber Playbook Against Ukraine
New CVSS Version Unveiled Amid Rising Cyber Threats
Tweet of the Week
https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/1679215510951477248
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