Free Republic

South Korea and the United States have agreed to cooperate in fighting cyber attacks against their defence networks from countries including China and North Korea, officials said Monday. The April 30 deal calls for an exchange of information on detecting and fighting cyber attacks against information systems used by the militaries of the two allies, the defence ministry said. At least once a year the two countries will hold a conference on joint readiness against computer hacking, it said. "The deal covers cyber attacks in general, including those from North Korea and China," a ministry official told AFP on condition...

By Donna Miles American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, April 22, 2009 – Defense Department officials are working to reduce vulnerability to cyber-attack attempts that occur regularly and are likely to continue for the foreseeable future, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said. “We are under attack virtually all the time, every day here,” Gates told CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric yesterday during an interview broadcast on the show. Attempts to attack DoD computer networks have more than doubled recently, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters yesterday. He declined to cite details, saying that to do so would only “make it...

The WSJ's Siobhan Gorman has a tale today about deep penetration of America's power grid by foreign hackers that has several on the wingnut side of The Force hyperventilating. However, Gordon's story hangs mainly on the anonymous say so of "and former national-security officials". The nearest she gets to named sources confirming this alleged penetration is Dennis Blair saying "we have seen cyberattacks against critical infrastructures abroad, and many of our own infrastructures are as vulnerable as their foreign counterparts.", which doesn't actually pinpoint power companies at all. In fact, the best knows infrastructure cyber attack, in Australia, was aimed...

he head of the Pentagon's Strategic Command warned Congress today that the United States is vulnerable to cyberattacks "across the spectrum" and that more needs to be done to defend against the potential of online strikes, which could "potentially threaten not only our military networks, but also our critical national networks." But Air Force Gen. Kevin Chilton made clear to a House Armed Services subcommittee that he has not been asked to defend most government Web sites nor the commercial and public infrastructure networks whose destruction could cripple the nation.

Cyberwarfare is waged on a massive scale the world over. Ostensibly friendly nations zap each other's electronic nerve cells frequently, and with reckless abandon. On a single day in 2008, the Pentagon was hit by would-be intruders 6 million times in 24-hour period. Before Sept. 11, 2001, the highest annual figure for cyber attacks against the Pentagon was 250,000.

Shawn Henry, assistant director of the FBI's cyber division, told a conference in New York that computer attacks pose the biggest risk "from a national security perspective, other than a weapon of mass destruction or a bomb in one of our major cities." "Other than a nuclear device or some other type of destructive weapon, the threat to our infrastructure, the threat to our intelligence, the threat to our computer network is the most critical threat we face," he added. US experts talk of "cybergeddon," in which an advanced economy -- where almost everything of importance is linked to or...

"OPERATION CAST LEAD The IDF's Fight Against Terror in Gaza" # A blessed New Year to everyone here and abroad. Today's thread beginning January 1, 2009 (U.S.A. Time)

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

Malicious e-mail and other cyberattacks on Tibet advocacy groups in the United States are linked to Internet servers used in past hacker intrusions traced by U.S. law enforcement to China. The link, made by security experts on the basis of publicly available data, is the first direct evidence the recently intensified attacks against the Tibet groups, reported by United Press International a week ago, were launched from China. But it remains unclear to what extent -- if any -- the Chinese government or military is implicated. The news follows charges last week from the Save Darfur Coalition, a group opposing...

Defense-related think tanks and contractors, as well as the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies, were the target of repeated computer network intrusions last year apparently originating in China, the Department of Defense said this week. In its annual report to lawmakers on China's military power, the department said the intrusions "appeared to originate in" China but added, "It is unclear if these intrusions were conducted by, or with the endorsement of" the Chinese government or military. The report gave few details, but one China expert who works in the private sector told United Press International that in the last 18...

China bids for firm that makes "intrusion prevention" technology for the Department of Defense. THE CHINESE ANNOUNCED on Saturday that they would be buying into the company that provides the Pentagon with technology to prevent cyber-attacks--of the sort the Chinese launched a few weeks ago. Why worry? We are all free traders now, according the president and his secretary of the Treasury--all except misguided Democrats, trade unions, displaced workers, and those who worry about our national security. True, free trade is great--when dealing with other parties who are in it for the same thing--to make money. But that ain't the...

The New Zealand secret service has suggested the Chinese government was behind attacks on the country's networks. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark yesterday assured reporters that no classified information had been compromised but ... "We have very smart people to provide protection every time an attack is tried. Obviously, we learn from that," ... Warren Tucker, New Zealand's Security Intelligence Service director, hinted ...that the Chinese government was responsible for the attacks, referring to previous allegations about the country's spying activities by Canada's secret service. The allegations come only a week after the Chinese foreign ministry denied that the...

French government officials say they are now the fourth victim of cyberattacks originating from China, saying the attacks are similar to those reported by other countries. In the past three weeks, government officials in Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom have claimed that cyberattacks on government systems have originated from China. Chinese officials have denied they are behind the attacks. French officials were careful not to implicate the Chinese government as the source of the attacks.

Computers and information networks at the National Defense University (NDU), the Joint Chiefs military education school at Fort McNair in Washington, were hacked and damaged by unknown attackers, defense officials said. (snip) ... hackers had planted clandestine "trap doors" into the system that would allow them future access, or would facilitate computer attacks. The only way to ensure the security of the systems was to replace them... (snip) Official suspicions are focused on Chinese hackers, based on similar attacks on Pentagon and military computer networks. Chinese hackers also were involved in the electronic theft in 2005 of hundreds of evaluation...

Evan Kohlman describes how the internet has become the focal point for AlQaeda's new business model in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs. Following is an except published at Counterterrorism Blog: In truth, although catastrophic computer attacks are not entirely inconceivable, the prospect that militants will be able to execute them anytime soon has been overblown. Fears of such science-fiction scenarios, moreover, have led policymakers to overlook the fact that terrorists currently use the Internet as a cheap and efficient way of communicating and organizing. These militants are now dedicated to waging an innovative, low-intensity military campaign against the United...

Has cartoon rage in Denmark over the cartoons of Muhammad printed by the newspaper Jyllands Posten now taken the form of hacker attacks against that paper's website? "Denmark subject to islamic cyber-attacks," from the Dansk-Svensk blogspot, with thanks to Steen: from www.politiken.dk the 29 of jan. a German version will appear later today: New hacker attack paralyzes Jyllands-Posten The web version of Jyllands-Posten is off-line. Hackers pulled off another large attack on the website of the paper. The web version of the paper Jyllands-Posten, www.jp.dk, has again been knocked to the ground. The web paper is under attack by hackers....

Many FReepers, especially those in NJ, are familiar with the trentonrevolution website. Whether for analysis, opinion, NJ news or humor, I have always found the site to have something to say. I went to the site this morning to check on the status of a previous posted multi-part piece. I was unable to access the site. After several hours, I was finally able to make a connection and their was a two line note about the attack. Have any other small sites suffered the same fate? They do have a new webTOON, it was interesting. Best of luck to them.

Chinese hackers have been blamed for a wave of attacks on South Korean government computers, the latest in a series of internet security breaches in which China is alleged to have been involved. The US, Taiwan and the Dalai Lama are among other victims of suspected Chinese cyber sabotage in recent years. Nearly 300 South Korean government computers have been infected recently with viruses capable of stealing passwords and other sensitive information. The National Assembly and an atomic energy research institute are among 10 agencies penetrated by the hackers, who were traced to China by the Korean intelligence service. "The...

ONE of the most destructive computer viruses in the world started from a semi-detached house in the genteel resort of Llandudno. From his pebble-dashed family home, 22-year-old cyber vandal Simon Vallor dispatched three viruses which dug their way into e-mail address books across the world. One virus alone spread to 27,000 computers in 42 different countries, causing incalculable economic damage to businesses. North Wales Police arrested Vallor in February after receiving information from the FBI in the US, where the viruses wreaked havoc. At Bow Street Magistrates Court, in central London, Vallor yesterday admitted spreading the virus. He was released...