<story><title>Lessons from last week’s cyberattack</title><url>https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2017/05/14/need-urgent-collective-action-keep-people-safe-online-lessons-last-weeks-cyberattack/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>josephg</author><text>&amp;gt; Instead what will happen is more tightening of the walled garden&lt;p&gt;You know what? I&amp;#x27;m starting to get excited for the walled garden to get more walls.&lt;p&gt;Native desktop applications get far too many permissions by default - its crazy that any desktop application, once running can register itself at startup, see all my files (created by any application), register system-wide keyloggers, take screenshots of other applications and download my contacts list, all without my permission. We don&amp;#x27;t let web apps do that, because web app developers aren&amp;#x27;t trusted by default. We don&amp;#x27;t let mobile apps do that, because mobile app developers aren&amp;#x27;t trusted by default. Why on earth do we implicitly trust any executable file run on the desktop so much?&lt;p&gt;Telling users not to double click on executables is obviously not working. Even for experienced users I have no idea whether some random app on the internet is trustworthy. Its a reverse lottery. I also suspect ransomware like this one would have been slowed down if it needed explicit user permission to read &amp;amp; modify files on disk.&lt;p&gt;We even know what the sandbox should look like, because we have two working examples in the form of the web and mobile. And we have sandboxing support &amp;amp; APIs in most operating systems. We&amp;#x27;re just missing the UI part.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m imagining something like:&lt;p&gt;- All apps get signed by the developer (Lean on SSL? Not sure the chain here.)&lt;p&gt;- The app needs to request capabilities from the user, like on iOS. &amp;quot;App X by Y developer wants permission to read the files in your home directory&amp;quot;. (&amp;#x2F; Read your contacts &amp;#x2F; Register at startup &amp;#x2F; Take screenshots &amp;#x2F; Modify these files).&lt;p&gt;- Capabilities can be viewed and revoked at a system-wide level in the control panel &amp;#x2F; system preferences.</text></item><item><author>Kholo</author><text>Complete BS. This is what happens when you have top class PR at your disposal to define the narrative.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft is responsible for their shit software getting exploited first and foremost. Seriously fine Microsoft and by day after tomorrow that 3500 security engineer number will jump to something realistic.&lt;p&gt;Instead what will happen is more tightening of the walled garden, overcharging of support&amp;#x2F;security contracts and propping up of another billionaire or two. I can hear the whisky glasses clinking.&lt;p&gt;Corporations do not get to set the agenda and the narrative. When they are allowed to, the results are very predictable - in this case Microsoft will make more than they loose. Who here disagrees that is going to happen? And who here believes that is right?&lt;p&gt;The answer is simple whether its Microsoft today or Facebook and Google tomorrow win-win should not be an option when such things happen.</text></item><item><author>loteck</author><text>The quote bombshell here, and what hasnt yet gotten much attention since sysadmins the world over are busy dealing with fallout, is that the NSA and therefore the US government is directly responsible for the current global cyber-carnage. We developed the capability, we chose to keep it unpatched, we tried to keep it secret, we lost control of it.&lt;p&gt;This has similarities in type, if not in horror, to the development and subsequent spread of nuclear weapons. When we lost control of those secrets, it was a BFD [0].&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Atomic_spies&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Atomic_spies&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>beagle3</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s fine and dandy - I&amp;#x27;m all for it, in fact, I configure my systems thus with 3rd party tools as much as I can. Android is mostly like this (with a less than perfect implementation)&lt;p&gt;But when people talk of &amp;quot;walled gardens&amp;quot;, they mostly refer to the guardian at the entrance. Only Apple decides what runs on iOS, only Microsoft decides whats in the App Shop. That&amp;#x27;s NOT good for anyone (except Apple and Microsoft).&lt;p&gt;Sure, make users jump through hoops to install alternate stores, and warn them up the wazoo when they do that. But do let them, or general purpose computing as we know it is gone.</text></comment>
<story><title>Lessons from last week’s cyberattack</title><url>https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2017/05/14/need-urgent-collective-action-keep-people-safe-online-lessons-last-weeks-cyberattack/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>josephg</author><text>&amp;gt; Instead what will happen is more tightening of the walled garden&lt;p&gt;You know what? I&amp;#x27;m starting to get excited for the walled garden to get more walls.&lt;p&gt;Native desktop applications get far too many permissions by default - its crazy that any desktop application, once running can register itself at startup, see all my files (created by any application), register system-wide keyloggers, take screenshots of other applications and download my contacts list, all without my permission. We don&amp;#x27;t let web apps do that, because web app developers aren&amp;#x27;t trusted by default. We don&amp;#x27;t let mobile apps do that, because mobile app developers aren&amp;#x27;t trusted by default. Why on earth do we implicitly trust any executable file run on the desktop so much?&lt;p&gt;Telling users not to double click on executables is obviously not working. Even for experienced users I have no idea whether some random app on the internet is trustworthy. Its a reverse lottery. I also suspect ransomware like this one would have been slowed down if it needed explicit user permission to read &amp;amp; modify files on disk.&lt;p&gt;We even know what the sandbox should look like, because we have two working examples in the form of the web and mobile. And we have sandboxing support &amp;amp; APIs in most operating systems. We&amp;#x27;re just missing the UI part.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m imagining something like:&lt;p&gt;- All apps get signed by the developer (Lean on SSL? Not sure the chain here.)&lt;p&gt;- The app needs to request capabilities from the user, like on iOS. &amp;quot;App X by Y developer wants permission to read the files in your home directory&amp;quot;. (&amp;#x2F; Read your contacts &amp;#x2F; Register at startup &amp;#x2F; Take screenshots &amp;#x2F; Modify these files).&lt;p&gt;- Capabilities can be viewed and revoked at a system-wide level in the control panel &amp;#x2F; system preferences.</text></item><item><author>Kholo</author><text>Complete BS. This is what happens when you have top class PR at your disposal to define the narrative.&lt;p&gt;Microsoft is responsible for their shit software getting exploited first and foremost. Seriously fine Microsoft and by day after tomorrow that 3500 security engineer number will jump to something realistic.&lt;p&gt;Instead what will happen is more tightening of the walled garden, overcharging of support&amp;#x2F;security contracts and propping up of another billionaire or two. I can hear the whisky glasses clinking.&lt;p&gt;Corporations do not get to set the agenda and the narrative. When they are allowed to, the results are very predictable - in this case Microsoft will make more than they loose. Who here disagrees that is going to happen? And who here believes that is right?&lt;p&gt;The answer is simple whether its Microsoft today or Facebook and Google tomorrow win-win should not be an option when such things happen.</text></item><item><author>loteck</author><text>The quote bombshell here, and what hasnt yet gotten much attention since sysadmins the world over are busy dealing with fallout, is that the NSA and therefore the US government is directly responsible for the current global cyber-carnage. We developed the capability, we chose to keep it unpatched, we tried to keep it secret, we lost control of it.&lt;p&gt;This has similarities in type, if not in horror, to the development and subsequent spread of nuclear weapons. When we lost control of those secrets, it was a BFD [0].&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Atomic_spies&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Atomic_spies&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pharrlax</author><text>&amp;gt;You know what? I&amp;#x27;m starting to get excited for the walled garden to get more walls.&lt;p&gt;Yep. What developer types don&amp;#x27;t like to admit is that for the average user, who doesn&amp;#x27;t use the features excluded by the walled garden anyway, the tradeoff is well worth the security gains.</text></comment>