I get paged for hack attempts on about 60 routers. It's up about 2000% today.

[Recursion]

Normally I'll get maybe 2 or 3 in a week; today I'm at (checks inbox) 7200 and counting. Mostly Russian and Eastern European IP addresses.

Something happened, today. I don't know if Russia went into lockdown over the COVID that they have "4" cases of, or something else, but this is new and unusual.

[jls4561]

1. Please update us if you get any more information.

[Recursion]

2. Roger that (nt)

[lagomorph777]

11. Been seeing some Russian trolling at DU today too.

One was endorsing Barr's move to drop charges against the St. Petersburg election hackers.

[B Stieg]

29. Saw some on DU yesterday

Under 50 posts!

[BComplex]

44. I've seen several on DU today.

WTF? Can't we do anything about it?

[lagomorph777]

50. We could consider flagging the post, but they're fairly sly.

Might get burned if the post is not a technical violation of a specific TOS.

[joost5]

70. HEY DU ADMINs! K&R

We need a way to flag bots or malicious actors for your review. Then you can delete their user/content or remove the flag.

@DU

[lagomorph777]

72. +1 need a way to handle Putin's trolls even when they're clever.

[Mike 03]

3. Kick and Recommend

Thanks for the info.

[marble falls]

4. I am afraid we live in "interesting times".

[wnylib]

28. Update that to "interfering times."

[stopdiggin]

5. thanks. keep posting on this

and any reporting or links would be great too.

[PA Democrat]

6. Have we heard yet who hacked Dept. of Health and Human Services?

[Recursion]

7. None of my contacts have any info, just "probable state actor"

Good call looping that in

[hunter]

8. I think Russia will be one of the nations hardest hit by this virus.

Worse than Iran, Italy, or the U.S.A..

[Wounded Bear]

9. Ultimate culture of denial there. Would not be surprised...nt

[ToxMarz]

10. I have thought the fact that we are hearing nothing about the virus from Russia,

which is exactly what Trump would like to have happened here, is very ominous.

I think it is a very bad sign for the Russian people. Unlikely Putin is personally is going to come out of pocket, which is exactly what their economy is (his pocket).

[lagomorph777]

12. Very sad for the Russian people; seems they are seriously fucked.

Have had a number of very positive interactions with Russians over the years; I find them personally wonderful people. Too bad they got stuck with Putin.

[Recursion]

15. Impossible! They only have "4" cases!

[superpatriotman]

17. 114 as of 5:15 pm

March 17, 2020

[flibbitygiblets]

23. You can't have a high number of cases if you don't test

Just ask Donny "I like the numbers where they are" Smallhands

[superpatriotman]

25. Or Erdogan

[Sogo]

69. Some eye-popping info on Russia in this thread:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213119872

[joost5]

75. thx for posting link for more info

... VERY interesting how that dictatorship's limiting and concealing #s. Sounds like what Agent Small Hands was trying to do by ignoring the threat and limiting the testing.

[Cosmocat]

18. They fuck up everything

See, Chernobyl...

[Ilsa]

30. They are getting screwed on oil "bigly." West Texas Intermediate crude

is down again today, priced at $26.82 per barrel. I cannot remember how long it has been since WTI crude was this low. Makes me want to take a long driving vacation.

[Hortensis]

37. :) Same here! With what's happening with gas prices, I've been

wondering if a road trip or two with our little travel trailer might be a viable way to socially distance while sheltering "at home." To break the monotony, and seems a shame to pass up this opportunity. Except we're both high-risk ages and maybe not long trips, darn! I miss the desert.
Still, there're a lot of places we've never seen in the SE that not many people visit.

[rownesheck]

52. Hopefully

putin gets an extremely severe case and his body explodes like a fucking bomb. That weaselly fucker deserves it.

[CaptYossarian]

56. That isn't fair to their citizens.

Just like us, it should only hit at the top.

The Russian word for friend is Tovarich. If they were as pricky as Vladimir, that word wouldn't exist.

[mjvpi]

13. See what happens when we don't occupy our high school students.

Way too much unsupervised screen time. Kidding aside, this is very disturbing. Weaponized chaos.

[amuse bouche]

14. Is Susan Collins troubled or concerned yet?

[Recursion]

16. Her brows aren't even furrowed

God I hope we can get rid of her this cycle.

[progressoid]

19. They see the potential for access to unprotected systems with everyone at home?

They think no one is "watching the store" so...easy access.

[Recursion]

21. Which is ironic, because with so much teleworking the networks are being scrutinized

more closely than normal. But, yeah, I think there's probably something to your point.

[Cosmocat]

20. IMO

Putin trying to make it worse when we are down and have a POTUS who will let him.

[snort]

22. +1

[joost5]

76. It's not opinion. It's fact: Russia is trying to make it worse and drumpf is -again- a useful idiot.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/russian-media-spreading-covid-19-disinformation

Leaked EU report says pro-Kremlin outlets seeking to aggravate public health crisis

“Pro-Kremlin media outlets have been prominent in spreading disinformation about the coronavirus, with the aim to aggravate the public health crisis in western countries, specifically by undermining public trust in national healthcare systems,” states the report, seen by the Guardian.

[uncle ray]

24. a little part of me deep down inside feels like all of this is part of a coordinated attack.

including the virus.

most of me knows better, but that part of me feels like we're losing the Putin's war on Democracy, and by the time we realize it, it will be too late.

the more likely scenario is, as i've predicted from day 1 of trump, is that every enemy of trump and the US would pile on once the initial crisis hit him/us. it has, and they are.

[rocktivity]

33. And Dystopian Don is in on it

either because he's being blackmailed, he's TOO dumb to realize he's a puppet, or he's decided that he's not going down alone...


rocktivity[g]

[Duppers]

46. This originated in China.

Been verified.

[58Sunliner]

54. How has it been verified? It has not been traced back to any specific animal.

We have 99% of the same DNA as a chimp-this virus only shares 96% DNA with any other known coronavirus. It has been stable as a virus, with no major mutations. You can not say where it came from. Any assumptions are not fact based.

[jberryhill]

51. People are taking advantage of chaos

[usaf-vet]

55. Naomi Klein's. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Pay attention to what is being

done to our country in the middle of the chaos.

[orangecrush]

67. And part of me agrees.

We are in a position now where anything could happen.

[MontanaMama]

26. Bookmarked.

Please keep us updated.

[defacto7]

27. Similar here. It's thick out there.

[CaptainTruth]

36. Mind sharing where you're located?

[AlexSFCA]

31. Chernobyl 2.0

[rocktivity]

32. First the Coronavirus, then the computer virus

We'll be lucky if we still have an Internet as we know it by autumn.


rocktivity

[PatSeg]

34. K&R

[BadGimp]

35. Any chance you could please keep us updated?

This is of particular professional interest to me personally.

Thank you for the post!

[Hortensis]

38. Yes, extremely interesting and thank you.

Way too little voter attention to Russia, should come to mind whenever the election does. Anti-Russia crowds protesting in Ukraine despite need to avoid gathering. ? I've also been browsing Russia coronavirus etc and not believed what I've found.

[CaptainTruth]

39. I guess I'm officially "old," but I remember when the first systems sent pages.

It was such an incredible new thing.

That was back in the day when we actually wore "pagers" clipped to our belts & no one below a VP (at least in the Silicon Valley realm) had the luxury of a bulky Nokia cell phone with an antenna sticking out that worked in about 10% of the country.

Amazing how far we've come.

Please, thank an Engineer.

[Hekate]

40. KRBookmark

[Bernardo de La Paz]

41. Foreign actors or conservative actors wanting to downplay a "media & Democratic hoax"?

[pecosbob]

42. I have noticed odd behavior in debit and credit transactions at work the last few days

Odd delays and a higher than usual number of failures. At first I attributed it the the fact that nearly every other person in the country was out trying to buy toilet paper, but then I thought this would be a great time for the Russians to throw a few spanners in our works. There were attacks on the systems at Health and Human Services just a few days ago as well.

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

49. 2nd message on my answering machine this week

saying I had won Publishers Clearing House's $2 mil and to call a number and give my bank info. and that I would have to pay $5K plus in taxes.
I'm sure it's spam...

[elias7]

43. People should start reading books if they're bored

[ThoughtCriminal]

45. I wonder if they are taking advantage of companies

opening up ports to allow remote workers to get in.

[Duppers]

47. Good point. nt

[yonder]

64. Makes sense. From what we know, why wouldn't they?

[MoonlitKnight]

48. The malware Coronavirus maps certainly aren't helping.

[link:https://krebsonsecurity.com|

Good source of computer security info.

Also a lot of Microsoft patches released last week have yet to be deployed by many companies and are now being exploited.

[Amaryllis]

53. So can you explain a little more for those of us non-techy folks? How is it you are

monitoring 60 routers? And how are these hack attempts (maybe?) related to COVID? Your post intrigues me but i don't understand it other than there was an uptick in hacks.

[Recursion]

58. I'm a sysadmin so it's my job

I don't know in any sense that it's related to COVID, just that there's a lot more traffic from Russia today than yesterday.

[Amaryllis]

59. Thanks. Must be interesting to watch the trends.

[Recursion]

60. For about a week maybe :)

It gets pretty boring pretty fast

[Amaryllis]

62. Probably likek many things that sound interesting to outsiders but quickly become

routine when you are on the inside.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

68. Lots of hefty outages today.....

seen on https://outage.report/

e.g., Call of Duty, Steam, Borderlands, etc.

Have no clue if these are routine or not but many seemed to occur around the same time of day.

[hkp11]

57. thanks for the info

keep us updated

[Cognitive_Resonance]

61. Cyber attacks are targeting response organizations. There are truly bad people in the world. n/t

[Recursion]

63. My clients are all logistics companies

Mid-sized trucking and air shipping firms, plus some airport departments. So, yeah, exactly what a forward-thinking bad guy would want to hit.

[StClone]

65. RU phone calls about 2 a day!

My phone denotes country origin, when it can be traced, and I get 2 a day from Russia.

[orangecrush]

66. Pro Patria Vigilans

[SunSeeker]

71. K & R for exposure.

[jayfish]

73. Why Arent You...

geofencing via IP? Not that you would catch everything but it's a good start.

[Recursion]

74. Because my clients have customers in Russia and China (nt)

[jayfish]

78. It's A PITA But...

whitelist the customer IPs. It might help you get some sleep.

[uponit7771]

79. 👍

[rockfordfile]

77. Russians are checking out the voting