Posted on 08/25/2010 8:55:41 PM PDT by VRWCTexan
A foreign spy agency pulled off the most serious breach of Pentagon computer networks ever by inserting a flash drive into a U.S. military laptop, a top defense official said Wednesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
What is NEW is now linked in Post No. 15
The Pentagon has decided just today to “come clean” and declassify the story as to when and how there have been multiple serious national security breaches spanning since 2008
Also see link in Post 13
Correction see link in Post 16
A bit pricey, but this one is nice!!!
http://www.buy.com/prod/kingston-256gb-datatraveler-310-usb-flash-drive/q/loc/101/214525951.html
Perhaps this incident is related to the wikileaks.
Reports like this confirm my misgivings in govt, and the bureaucrats who are supposed to serve and protect our nation, and us.
This is a byproduct of equal opportunity for muslims. Where muslims are given preference in govt positions in order to demonstrate to other muslim worlds how tolerant America is.
Apparently after 911, some of our illustrious bureaucrats determined we should seek to befriend muslims, as a strategy to discourage them from murdering us. So they hired them to work in sensitive areas.
“And now, you know the rest of the story.”
NATO still allows them under some painful use requirements, but it's still better than the standard Army response that is less about solving the problem than it is bludgeoning the problem to death with a blunt instrument.
“no USB thumb drives have been allowed on government computers.”
Thanks. And rest assured, our sensitive documents are safe. Anyone who has ever tread to the dmv to waste a few hours, just so they can acquire permission to drive their car, can attest to this.
When the Boss (Obama) doesn’t care about protecting America, neither do the employees.
Two intriguing points:
1) A simultaneous attack was performed on the Department of Justice. See http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/it/thumb_drive_security_peril_at ...this raises the specter that other attacks were occurring at the time and have not been reported. Or, detected [cue ominous music].
2) Shortly after these attacks, China banned Windows from critical government and military computers, moving instead to a version of FreeBSD Unix (familiar as the underpinnings of Mac OS X). http://www.h-online.com/security/China-installs-a-secure-operating-system-on-all-military-PCs—/news/113298
NOTE The following text is a quote:
www.defense.gov//News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=60600
Lynn Outlines Cyber Threats, Defensive Measures
By Lisa Daniel
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 25, 2010 – An infected flash drive inserted into a Defense Department computer in 2008 caused “a significant compromise” of the department’s classified computer networks and was a “wake-up call” for Pentagon officials to expedite cyber defense measures, the deputy secretary of defense revealed in a new magazine article.
The previously classified incident caused the most significant breach ever to U.S. military computers, William J. Lynn III wrote for an article appearing in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.
Titled “Defending a New Domain,” the article outlines the evolution of computer network threats and measures the department has put into place to deal with them. The frequency and sophistication of intrusions into U.S. military networks have increased exponentially in the past 10 years, Lynn wrote. They now are probed thousands of times and scanned millions of times, every day, he added.
Sometimes the adversaries are successful, Lynn said, and they have acquired thousands of files from Defense Department networks and those of the Pentagon’s industry partners and U.S. allies, including weapons blueprints, operational plans and surveillance data.
To counter the threat, the Pentagon has built “layered and robust defenses” around military networks and created the new U.S. Cyber Command to integrate processes, Lynn said. Department officials are working with their counterparts at the Homeland Security Department, which has jurisdiction over the “dot-com” and “dot-gov” domains, to protect the networks.
The Defense Department has 15,000 networks and 7 million computing devices in use in dozens of countries, with 90,000 people working to maintain them, Lynn said, and it depends heavily on commercial industry for its network operations.
“Information technology enables almost everything the U.S. military does,” Lynn wrote, from logistical support and command and control to real-time intelligence and remote operations. Any future conflict will include cybersecurity, he has said.
In his article, Lynn outlines five pillars of the department’s emerging cybersecurity policy:
— Cyber must be recognized as a warfare domain equal to land, sea, and air;
— Any defensive posture must go beyond “good hygiene” to include sophisticated and accurate operations that allow rapid response;
— Cyber defenses must reach beyond the department’s dot-mil world into commercial networks, as governed by Homeland Security;
— Cyber defenses must be pursued with international allies for an effective “shared warning” of threats; and
— The Defense Department must help to maintain and leverage U.S. technological dominance and improve the acquisitions process to keep up with the speed and agility of the information technology industry.
Pentagon officials are developing a cyber strategy document to be released in the fall. It will address, among other things, any statutory changes needed for cyber defense, and the capability for “automated defenses,” such as the ability block malware at top speed, Lynn has said.
Biographies:
William J. Lynn III
Related Sites:
Foreign Affairs Magazine Article
Special Report: Cybersecurity
The Cyber Warfare Center was going to be at Barksdale,AFB
down the road from me,,,
We got the Global Strike Command instead since the nukes
were already here,,,and the B-52’s,,,
That said,,,
Somebody dropped the ball on this one,,,
The CWC’s job was to prevent this “hacking” and to trace
the source and to Cyber Bomb it...
Driveby poster.
This story happens every week!
Let me guess the country name begins with C and ends with A.
Am I close?
Columbia?
Czechoslovakia?
Czechoslovakia?
Crimea?
Blame CANADA!
beat ya by 20 seconds!
You did! Because I had to chzeckz teh spelling.
I haven't heard the ban was lifted.
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