A little about cybersecurity and "leather people" (c), ie you and me

In the United States, a public hearing is underway in the case of Graham Clark, who, on July 16 this year, as part of a group of individuals, allegedly carried out a massive hacking of Twitter accounts. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, hearings are being held online at Zoom. The broadcast of the hearing was opened to the public without due restriction for the participants, and pranksters were crowded into the ranks of spectators and journalists, who frolicked. They swore, played rap and in every way interfered with the judge. About a minute after they played the Pornhub video on the public screen, Judge Christopher Nash was forced to stop the hearing.





Everything in this news is great: the situation, and the characters and the expression on Mr. Nash's face (it is in the photo). What would be desirable in this regard.

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I remember a case that I saw ten years ago at Sberbank. At that time, there were still live queues in Sberbank, so there was time and an opportunity to enjoy social interaction. A kid in a cap and stylish Adidas sweatpants was paying some kind of payment. In the process of filling out the form, he asked many clarifying questions: where to write, what to write, how to write? Do I need to write the full name? And the name? And the middle name? When he was able to get to the payment and made this important act, it turned out, as was usual at that time, that there was no change in Sberbank and he was offered to receive a lottery ticket for change. The wearer of sweatpants happily agreed to this sensible proposal and the second wave of questions began. And how to wash, and how to wash, and wash completely or partially? And where it says "DO NOT ERASE" wash? End of the story.

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Returning to the hearings in the USA, I really want to shift the blame for what happened on Zoom and bugs in the software, but, most likely, this is a flaw of the system administrator. It is even more likely that this is a management problem, which thoughtlessly decided / allowed to let everyone in the event. Drawing an analogy with the front door: if you did not close the door and you were robbed, this is not a bad door, and you did not close it. Developing a thought: if you glued a sticker with a login / password from a computer to a work monitor, then it was not the password that was hacked, but you told everyone it.

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PS There is the Hanlon Razor Principle, which is expressed by the phrase: "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained as stupidity." In my opinion, together with Murphy's Law and Moore's Law, they are the three pillars on which the entire IT world rests.



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