[Sammy67]

Not Good.

[COBOL2Java]

The Pentagon has suffered from a cyber attack so alarming that it has taken the unprecedented step of banning the use of external hardware devices, such as flash drives and DVD's, FOX News has learned.

Um, I work in a similar secure area, and these devices have been banned for quite some time.

[GOPJ]

Maybe Obama can sit down and talk to these guys. I'm sure when he explains how troublesome it is, they'll mend their errant ways....

/s

[FlyVet]

I remember in the late 90's the .mil net was getting beaten up pretty badly by a certain kind of virus, can't remember if it was worm or not.

One would click on a bogus email, and it would automatically spread the virus to everyone in your address book. The only real damage it did was to overwhelm the system with thousands of bogus emails, thus slowing the servers to a crawl.

It took maybe six months to get that under control. It was mostly a matter of education. If you didn't recognize the sender, don't open it, delete it, and notify the webmaster.

[FReepaholic]

...The Pentagon has suffered from a cyber attack so alarming that it has taken the unprecedented step of banning the use of external hardware devices, such as flash drives and DVD's...

I'm surprised they hadn't restricted those before now. Endpoint security and data leakage prevention are the current hot topics in infosec these days.

[LibWhacker]

Stupid Pentagon, Macs are so much better. Do I have to resort to graphics to prove my point?

[modest proposal]

Ugh the news just keeps getting worse and more depressing.

The full implications of that fool Obama being sworn in are hitting me more and more each day and I am very sad. He won’t lift a finger for our aid.

[Eye of Unk]

Skynet is born.

[khnyny]

bump for later read.

[rmlew]

How much of the Pentagon's equipment is made in China? Who makes their routers?
Why would they allow USB devices in the Pentagon at all? I know business, which have banned these and they don't have secrets anywhere as serious as the Pentagon!

[rdl6989]

You’d think they would at least wait until Borat Osama’s coronation ceremony.

[Munz]

we are so screwed.

[ShadowAce]

[liberte]

Unbelievable. The freaking DOD did not secure their computers by disabling the USB ports? I only work in insurance, and my company has been doing that for a couple of years. Who the #@#$%&! is running that place?

[nw_arizona_granny]

Ping.

[indthkr]

bump...

[rjp2005]

From Seven Steps to a Caliphate:

“The Fourth Phase. Between 2010 and 2013, Hussein writes that al-Qaida will aim to bring about the collapse of the hated Arabic governments. The estimate is that “the creeping loss of the regimes’ power will lead to a steady growth in strength within al-Qaida.” At the same time attacks will be carried out against oil suppliers and the US economy will be targeted using cyber terrorism.

[pontificus sanctimonius]

Whatever this thing is, it cannot be any worse than the Navy / Marine Corp Intranet, aka NMCI. The NMCI is a humongous, costly, self-inflicted Denial of Service attack. It demonstrates that even in DoD we learned nothing from the failures of Soviet style centralization.

By the way: the productive use of removable media in the unclassified environment will always far outweigh the risks coming from these devices. The command to ban removable devices is an unnecessary spasm illustrating DoD ineptness in building a reliable network infrastructure, particularly on NMCI. The ChiComs, or whomever, managed to introduce a bug in our systems. Our own flag officers and SESers multiplied this annoyance many fold with the ban on removable devices. Our enemies say thank you very much.

[TheNewPundit]

Bill Ayers got a computer?

[South40]

Obama's got his secret clearance already?

This is why he could not pass the background check.

[gogogodzilla]

External hardware devices like DVDs?!?!

Can anyone tell me how you plug a DVD into a USB port?