When great ideas go to the wrong places

Or: why attribution is not a technical problem.

TL;DR: hacking is an art and a science, computer attacks (cyber these days) are only one manifestation of an aggressor, which has very limited traits that can trace it to its origin. Relying on technical evidence without additional aspects is not enough to apply attribution, and when done so, attackers can use it to deflect attribution to other actors.

Context: Experts, Microsoft push for global NGO to expose hackers

So, apparently, some really smart people at RAND corporation and Microsoft have decided that they are going to solver the world’s computer Bourne attack problems by creating a new global NGO to unmask and apply attribution to hacking incidents. They claim the organization will be responsible to authoritatively publish the identities of attackers behind major cyber attacks.

Which is really cute when you think about it – a bunch of brainiacs (and Microsoft people) sit around and analyze network, storage and memory dumps to trace back attacks to their origins. Sounds like a really great service, which can be used by companies and governments to trace back who attacked them, and act on it (either by suing, or means of diplomatic recourse).

The only problem is that the attribution game is not won on technical merit only. And guess what? Attackers know that very well. Even the US government knows that (or at least the organization responsible for launching such attacks) and have been trained to study different attacker’s traits and tactics so that they can replicate them in their own attack – hence throwing off attribution if/when the attacks are detected.

The reality of it is that companies are often hired to provide incident response and forensics, and in a rush/pressure to give value to their clients, come up with attribution claims based on technical merits. Cyrillic words will point to Eastern European blame (RUSSIA!). Chinese character in a binary will lead to claiming Chinese hackers are behind an attack. An Iranian IP address linked to a command and control server that trojans connect to will point to an Iranian government operation. Which is all a big steaming pile of horse feces because everyone who’s been on the offense in the last couple of decades (probably more – I can only attest to my experience) also knows that. And can easily create such traces in their attack. Furthermore, for the ones following at home thinking “oh, they know that I know…” – yes, we play that game too, and attackers are also “nesting” their red herrings to trace back to several different blamed parties, and it all depends on how deep the forensic analyst wants to dive in.

The bottom line, is that the technical artifacts of a computer attack are ALL FULLY CONTROLLED BY THE ATTACKER. Almost all forensic evidence that can be found is controlled by a knowledgeable attacker, and should be considered tainted.

Now consider an NGO who have no “skin in the game”, and relies on technical artifacts to come up with attribution. No financial evidence, no political ties, no social and physical artifacts or profiling of suspected targets or persons of interest in the victim organization. Anyone who’s been somewhat involved in the intelligence community can tell you that without these, an investigation is not worth the paper or the bits that are produced during it.

So, sorry to burst another bubble, and actually, if you read the article, you’ll see that I’m not alone, and at the Cycon conference at which this initiative was announced, several others have expressed pretty firm opinions on the futility of this initiative. So as much as I appreciate the initiative and willingness to act and “fix the problem”, perhaps it’s best to actually step out of the fluorescent light and really understand how things work in the real world 😉


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