Posted on 01/12/2007 10:13:51 AM PST by Gritty
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 reports on Air Force officers, ranging from generals to captains. The information in the reports would be valuable to Chinese intelligence for its targeted agent recruitment efforts.
(snip)
... (Defense Department Security called) for raising the security alert level for about 12,000 Pentagon computer networks and 5 million computers.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Heck, I'd estimate 90 percent of the intrusion attempts on our system and those of clients have come from China.
There is a school 10 miles outside Beijing where the students do not graduate until they hack into a U.S. Defense computer.
ping
Hopefully that doesn't mean replacing the hardware. Just reformat the disk drives and copy the basic software load back on. That's what most places do.
Most computers and servers in China are unsecured and running on bootleg software. This means that we don't really know whether these hacks were actually conducted by the Chinese, or manipulated by others via Chinese networks. Many hackers from around the world use Chinese networks to stay anonymous. It's poor journalism (not surprising as it is by Bill Gertz) to not include this tidbit.
DoD has a whole different set of protocols for used computer equipment. Usually, it cannot be recycled, particularly if it held classified data. It HAS to be physically destroyed.
And I suspect that compromised systems are really no different. Wiping a drive does not guarantee that the boot sector is not infected with a trojan. Flashable firmware could even be considered at risk.
100% of these intrusions could be avoided if critical systems didn't enjoy connectivity with the outside world. Granted, physical attacks could still occur, but I would think that it's much easier to guard against a physical attack than one coming from cyberspace.
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