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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..."
Spies use any means available to find information. If the Internet helps, they'll use it. That does not change their ornithological classification, or make them more specialized in one key area.
Also, spies would rather have infrastructure INTACT, so they can exploit it easily. They are lazy humans, like you.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
When I worked at Boeing (and before that the Army) - if you had secret plans, you didn't keep them on a box that was open to the Net.
The problem is that they're not even following their own rules - Win boxen have never been approved for holding Net-connected data - only in a stand-alone environment are they even considered, and even then in a secure room with full security protocols enforced.
We used to lock down our drives too. In locked cabinets. When we went home.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
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