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

You PWN3D my Empire!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Funny, Booz Allen might like to take a leaf from the Northrop-Grumman playbook and charge the Chinese for this information!

Let's get this straight.

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

Spy vs. Spy

[mfh]

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.

Re:Spy vs. Spy

[virtual_mps]

Spies use any means available to find information. If the Internet helps, they'll use it. That does not change their ornithological classification I'm missing what is doubtless a deep and subtle point about spies and birds.

Re:Spy vs. Spy

[PopeRatzo]

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.

Great point.

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 shouldn't have military plans on the Net

[WillAffleckUW]

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.