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Inside the Secret War Against Internet Spies
ahess247 brings us a lengthy BusinessWeek story on the increasing amount of attacks against the US government's online presence as well as its contacts in the private sector. Hackers are gaining a greater awareness of where valuable data might reside, and that awareness is leading to more precise, more sophisticated attacks. Quoting:
"The U.S. government, and its sprawl of defense contractors, have been the victims of an unprecedented rash of similar cyber attacks over the last two years, say current and former U.S. government officials. 'It's espionage on a massive scale,' says Paul B. Kurtz, a former high-ranking national security official. Government agencies reported 12,986 cyber security incidents to the U.S. Homeland Security Dept. last fiscal year, triple the number from two years earlier. Incursions on the military's networks were up 55% last year, says Lieutenant General Charles E. Croom, head of the Pentagon's Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations. Private targets like Booz Allen are just as vulnerable and pose just as much potential security risk. 'They have our information on their networks. They're building our weapon systems. You wouldn't want that in enemy hands,' Croom says. Cyber attackers 'are not denying, disrupting, or destroying operations--yet. But that doesn't mean they don't have the capability.'"
Northrop-Grumman or General Dynamics or any D.o'D. approved private contractor can post anything they like about future combat systems on their websites, and even sell secret weapons systems to Saudis or the UAE or anyone else who can buy, but for anyone else to do it is an infringement of national security.
Also, the private contractors can preferentially hire non-nationals, who work diligently and are key to the development of these systems, instead of American citizens who might be disturbed at the nature of what the private contractors are doing in the name of national security, but that's the free market.
So, if I remember correctly, didn't something happen in Germany in the 1930s that caused its brightest physiscists to flee? And didn't the same imperial hubris that caused Germany to persecute the people who might have made it an economic power after WWI really cause it to enter- and lose- WWII?
Just askin'. I just wondered what the Party line was these days. http://spacetimecurves.blogspot.com/2008/04/pearl-clutching-by-master-race.html
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Back in Reagan's day, our intel folks managed to slip the Soviets a surprise that would have made Jokey Smurf proud with their bundle of purloined technology.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
And just because we're worried about "internet spies" let's not forget that there are plenty of the old-fashioned variety out there, too.
For example, how many of us know that 15 Bush Administration officials, including Sec'y of State Condi Rice, have just been subpoenaed in the oft-delayed Franklin/AIPAC/Israel Lobby spy case. Even though it's common enough to come up in Google search auto-complete, it hasn't been mentioned on any US media.
The difference is now the people that are spying on us are employed by the ones that are supposed to be working to protect us.
And even if we caught every single spy, who among us feels we could trust our Department of Justice to prosecute them with any integrity? Hell, if there were any justice, the top law enforcement appointees (John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez, Michael Mukasey, etc) not to mention their bosses, would be the ones facing trial.
You are welcome on my lawn.
How do you think the metagovernment will prevent hacker attacks?
I suppose governments can't go completely virtual until we can figure out how to make them hacker-proof.
Is complete openness in the code and systems enough to counter hackers? And/or can we suppose there will be a lot of white hats in favor of, and thus protecting, an open source government?
I'm a little fuzzy about this. I assume your comments are referring to Boeing policy.
Windows boxes have been allowed on the SIPRNet and JWICS since before I started my IT career. NT 4.0 was NIAP approved ages ago to do so. While those systems (arguable) aren't connected directly to the net, their boundaries have greatly expanded over the last 5 years to areas outside of military control.
The only drives that are locked up at night (in my environment) are ones that are used for desktops in non open-storage areas.
Now if you want to talk about problems, let's discuss why firms like SAIC, Boeing, etc. really need SIPRNet drops to their contracting facilities rather than bring the contractors on site...
I'd like to know what they are counting in those numbers. We probably have that many attacks per year on our dozen or so systems with all of the script kiddies running their dictionary attacks against the FTP server we use for getting business cards and flyers to the print shop. I can pull a large number out of my backside and claim the sky is falling as well as the next guy.
I find that hard to believe. SIPRNET, for example is locked away, in a room, not connected to the real world. And if anyone goes in to said locked room, they have a security clearance. And they damn sure don't walk in with any form of transportable media (thumb drives). Policies, such as the data at rest policy, prevent things like this from happening very often.
My apologies for posting anon, but I have mod points and I work for the Navy.