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.'"

Comments

Haven't they ever heard of GPG signatures?

[aqui]

I would have though that emails of this nature would be:

1) encrypted since they are sensitive themselves and at the very least

2) signed with a GPG or PGP signature that allows verification of the author.

Email encryption.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail_encryption

They can even do it for Free.
http://www.mozilla-enigmail.org/

or buy a PGP solution from someone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy

But I guess setting up a few signature servers and basic processes that control "secure email" would be to much of a hassle for people sending around their holiday pictures...

Besides what do I know I just searched google for 2 min, and they are the US government....

Hmmm... Maybe thats the problem. If its not a $10 Billion boondoggle with some cool codename then the Defense industry wouldn't exist in the first place. (That and maybe the US would stop having to invade small middle eastern countries to justify its military spending).

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boondoggle_%28project%29)