OPINION
Jeff Caplan’s Minute of News: The Okta Hack, was it Putin or a punk?
Mar 24, 2022, 5:30 PM
FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019, file photo, a woman types on a keyboard in New York. Photo credit: AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File.
Editor’s note: This is an editorial piece. An editorial, like a news article, is based on fact but also shares opinions. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and are not associated with our newsroom.
SALT LAKE CITY — An unknown hacker claims he’s broken into Okta. Which you’ve never heard of.
It’s a computer system that manages logins for thousands of companies and hundreds of millions of users.
This is huge because Okta is supposedly as secure as secure gets, and the passwords they manage are the keys to the American castle.
So the obvious question is, was it the Russians?
Well, it’s complicated.
Security experts have been tracing the breadcrumbs and yes, it could have been a Russian operation.
The hackers are strangely publicity-hungry.
The group goes by the name Lapsus, and they’ve been bragging about the ways they worm their way into important computer systems.
It could be that Putin is behind it. Could be that it’s a distraction as crafty Russian computer geeks prepare something even worse.
But Bloomberg reports, the trail of breadcrumbs leads to a 16-year-old kid living in his mom’s house in England.
So to summarize; the experts don’t know if this is Vladimir Putin or the cyber version of Wayne’s World.
Both are problematic but one’s far more serious than the other.
Bloomberg News rang the doorbell at the 16-year-old’s house and talked to his mom through the intercom.
She was kind of like, “My son did what?” and was worried pictures of her house were showing up on the internet.
So the moral of the story–or the two morals: First, know what your kids are up to online. If they’re helping Russia down the basement you should probably know about that.
And second? Don’t click any links in emails and change your passwords frequently.
