New “TCP Stealth” tool aims to help sysadmins block spies from exploiting their systems by David Meyer.
From the post:
System administrators who aren’t down with spies commandeering their servers might want to pay attention to this one: A Friday article in German security publication Heise provided technical detail on a GCHQ program called HACIENDA, which the British spy agency apparently uses to port-scan entire countries, and the authors have come up with an Internet Engineering Task Force draft for a new technique to counter this program.
The refreshing aspect of this vulnerability is that the details are being discussed in public, as it a partial solution.
Perhaps this is a step towards transparency for cybersecurity. Keeping malicious actors and “security researchers” only in the loop hasn’t worked out so well.
Whether governments fall into “malicious actors” or “security researchers” I leave to your judgement.