Posted on 02/11/2013 7:09:17 PM PST by BenLurkin
The U.S. is a victim of a massive and sustained campaign of cyber espionage, according to a classified intelligence assessment revealed by the Washington Post on Monday.
These periodic assessments, officially called National Intelligence Estimates (NIE), are issued by the Director of National Intelligence to express the general consensus of the intelligence community and to inform policymakers.
That the United States is the target of a large cyber espionage campaign seems like a foregone conclusion, given recent developments. In the last few weeks, there have been reports of complex cyber attacks against papers like the New York Times or The Wall Street Journal, both attributed to Chinese hackers. And the U.S. government has pointed the finger at Iran, accusing the Islamic republic of being behind a string of attacks against U.S. banks.
Also in January, online security giant Kaspersky Lab uncovered a giant cyber espionage operation codenamed Red October, which experts believed was carried out by either Russia or China.
China is deemed by the report as the biggest American enemy in the cyber world. France, Israel and Russia are also included in the report, but these last three countries' espionage efforts "pale in comparison" to China's.
(Excerpt) Read more at mashable.com ...
There are no coincidences. This is pretty damn blatant.
Having actually worked in computer security, I don’t think these reports are bogus.
We’ve known for over a decade (!) that the PLA has an organized effort to penetrate US corporate networks to steal intellectual property.
The Chinese are becoming more and more brazen. Closing these holes doesn’t require a federal response at all - and a federal response won’t help. What will help is American corporate management getting their heads out of their rectums.
Yes, the Obama administration is pushing their “cyber-security” BS. Most companies will likely just ignore it, the way they’ve ignored security issues for over 10 years.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a threat. All corporate management has to do is realize that they need to spend money on corporate network security, and some of the money they need to spend is on training of their employees, especially middle and upper management. The worst practices in personal data security are often the result of idiot senior managers who think using a computer properly is beneath them.
Just applying some melodramatic license...
No doubt the reports are in some way connected to real events, but I’m suspicious of the PR. This kind of vulnerability is not new.
>> Closing these holes doesnt require a federal response at all - and a federal response wont help.
Agreed, but it’s a “crisis that doesn’t need to go to waste” — if you know what I’m saying...
Oh, you’re absolutely right that there’s nothing new here. Absolutely nothing is a front-page article in any security journal.
The Federal Reserve got hacked recently. There’s all manner of reports of outfits that have gotten hacked that they kept quiet. Rather than keeping the whole matter hush-hush, they should be closing the holes.
But nooooo... the idiots down in DC think that it’s just about another press release.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.