From the New York Times:
Hackers exploiting data stolen from the United States government conducted extensive cyberattacks on Friday that hit dozens of countries, severely disrupting Britain’s public health system and wreaking havoc on tens of thousands of computers elsewhere, including Russia’s ministry for internal security.
There are really only two things that need to be said about this, both said well by others:
- “Remember last year when a whole bunch of people wanted Apple to create a special version of iOS for the U.S. government, under the promise that it would never escape their safe hands and get into the wild?” John Gruber, Daring Fireball (link)
- “Either everyone gets security or no one does.” Bruce Schneier (link)
The point is there’s no such thing as a security backdoor that “only I can use.” If you want systems to truly be secure, they must truly be secure.