Slashdot Mirror
Details Emerge On the 2006 Hacking of Congress
The National Journal just published an article with details about the hacking of Congress in 2006, possibly by agents in China, though the attack's origin is uncertain. The article notes the difficult work of the House Information Systems Security Office, which must set security policies and then try to enforce them on a population of the equivalent of C-level executives. The few members who have called attention to the issue of Congressional cyber-security have been advised to shut up about it, by whom the reporter did not discover. "Armed with this information about how the virus worked, the security officers scanned the House network again. This time, they found more machines that seemed to match the profile — they, too, were infected. Investigators found at least one infected computer in a member's district office, indicating that the virus had traveled through the House network and may have breached machines far away from Washington. Eventually, the security office determined that eight members' offices were affected; in most of the offices, the virus had invaded only one machine, but in some offices, it hit multiple computers. It also struck seven committee offices, including Commerce; Transportation and Infrastructure; Homeland Security; and Ways and Means; plus the Commission on China, which monitors human rights and laws in China."
Any proof about the Chinese origin?
Why not the Italian Mafia, the Muslim Jihad or whatever else?
Sounds more like FUD than real investigation!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Only a paranoid totalitarian state would waste time penetrating Congress. There's not much there that isn't accessible via the news. Anyone who had half a brain would target the Executive branch, where there is data that is not publically accessible.
Silly commies.
Or maybe they are hoping finding this will divert attention from the real stealth virus in the Pentagon.
"...possibly by agents in China, though the attack's origin is uncertain."
Why mention that it was possibly by agents in China when, immediately afterwards, you admit their origin is unknown? They could be agents from Russia. Or Iran. Or Canada. If you don't know, that means they could be from anywhere. Sure, it's fun to paint China as the badguy and gawd knows it's en vogue right now but, if it's unknown who was behind the attack, leave it at that.
Maybe that's because they're only looking for Chinese spies. Look at how they ruined people's lives only to later admit they weren't spies. Of course they didn't admit it was a mistake and I still here conservatives talk about how Clinton let the Chinese spy on us. I don't doubt there are Chinese spies. What I doubt is that this red scare is really as big as people are claiming.
Only a paranoid totalitarian state would waste time penetrating Congress. There's not much there that isn't accessible via the news. Anyone who had half a brain would target the Executive branch, where there is data that is not publically accessible.
How about some of your own, homegrown extremists and quasi-terrorists? Or for that matter, other members of Congress? No other country in the world houses so many groups of people with extreme agendas as the US, sadly: ultra-rightwing Christians, anti-abortionists, this-or-that rights campaigners, neo-nazis etc. There is no need to go abroad to likely braindeads who would hack into Congress.
It seems more likely to me that people who do this are after finding personal information on the PCs of members of Congress, something that could be used for extortion.