Government Created The Hacking Epidemic, They Aren’t The Solution

The “WannaCry” Malware attack that spooled out over the end of last week and into the weekend, implicates two sides of this problem. The government created the new hacking epidemic, yet are presenting themselves as a solution to it. Both of those “problems” should not be taken lightly either.

If this is the first time you’ve heard of “WannaCry”, you’ll be interested in knowing that the ransomware allegedly originated from vulnerabilities and infiltration tools developed by the National Security Agency (NSA). This little tidbit of information is largely ignored by government worshipers who seek an immediate solution caused by the government. Not only that, but the NSA had been hoarding and keeping secret from technology companies whose defenses they were breaching. All of this secrecy was to facilitate the NSA’s ability to engage in cyber espionage and to prevent technology companies from building defenses that would have inhibited government surveillance. But then, the NSA lost control of these infiltration tools and the government agency was publicly exposed by the hacker group known as the “Shadow Brokers” last month.

Yet, not many pointed the finger at the government, when it was entirely their fault for lying to and hacking into technology companies in the first place, and creating the tools with which to commit this type of cyber espionage.

So this WannaCry attack or something like it (and probably many more) was incoming, and attentive information technology specialists were aware [of] and hopefully prepared [for]. Microsoft had already released a patch to address the vulnerabilities. Except not everybody downloaded it.

The non-downloaders included parts of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS), the socialized, taxpayer-funded healthcare system that covers the entire population there. The NHS had been warned that computers using old Microsoft operating systems were vulnerable, but several hundreds of thousands of computers had not been upgraded, according to the BBC. –Reason

So now there is a government agency refusing to disclose cybersecurity vulnerabilities it had discovered in order to take advantage of them, leaving everybody’s computers open to attacks. And the same government agency refused to properly prioritize cyber security to protect the data and privacy of its citizens. Of course, the NSA blamed it on not having enough money. Just imagine, the government has enough money to initiate cyber espionage, but not enough to tell Americans that there’s damaging malware out there – and they know all about it because they created the tools for it.

And the blame is still going to Microsoft, who was lied to by the NSA (the government) about the ability to use malware to hack they systems. The government is accountable for all these screw ups, not Microsoft. Microsoft is extremely displeased by the NSA’s behavior too. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president and chief legal officer, called out the government for its responsibility for these threats to citizens:

The governments of the world should treat this attack as a wake-up call. They need to take a different approach and adhere in cyberspace to the same rules applied to weapons in the physical world. We need governments to consider the damage to civilians that comes from hoarding these vulnerabilities and the use of these exploits. This is one reason we called in February for a new “Digital Geneva Convention” to govern these issues, including a new requirement for governments to report vulnerabilities to vendors, rather than stockpile, sell, or exploit them.

Ironically, most Americans still clamor like sheep going to slaughter for more government intrusion in their lives. It is difficult to understand the mind of an American anymore. Instead of placing the blame squarely on the government’s shoulders for hoarding information and not telling Microsoft of the vulnerabilities it discovered after creating the tools to breach those vulnerabilities, the company will instead get the blame. Microsoft isn’t going around hacking into computers in the first place; that would be the US government.
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