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FAA Network Hacked
coondoggie writes "The Federal Aviation Administration has joined the growing list of government agencies that have had their supposedly safe systems hacked. The agency this week notified about 45,000 employees that one of its servers was hacked into and employee personal identity information was stolen.
The FAA was quick to say the server that was accessed was not connected to the operation of the air traffic control system or any other FAA operational system. It did say two of the 48 files on the breached computer server contained personal information about more than 45,000 FAA employees and retirees who were on the FAA's rolls as of the first week of February 2006."
Hope they find that CIP device soon!
Arghhh... Call Jack Bauer!!!!
Has the CIP device been recovered yet? Should we call in Jack Bauer?
It's the office/business network.
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Reminds me of this season of 24. (and also Die Hard 2 and 4 Fire Sale anyone?)
I'm pretty sure in the end Cowboy Neal will come and save the day though.
[insert generic slashdot meme]
...but they have said nothing to me or my wife or any of the other dozen people I know who are blissfully retired from that shit hole. Typical.
I'm assuming that the operation of the air traffic control system is not connected to the internet in ANY way at all?
Some questions:
1. Is being offline a guarantee for not being hacked? (How else than through the cable / wifi can you hack into a network)?
2. Is the FAA indeed offline?
Someone should ask the FAA how they managed to get an entire network (see: article title) onto one server (see: article summary). Was it a server, or a single work station? A server can dispense data, but dispensing data does not make it a server. Servers tend to act as the dispenser for data bearing machines, no?
What's the matter, wouldn't an article that said "One FAA Computer Hacked - Employee Data Stolen" be sexy enough? Probably not. The title as is misleads people into wondering if the ATC network was implicated.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
We know the air traffic control computers weren't hacked...There hardly are any, which is in itself a problem.
But being sloppy with data is a bad sign in any organization. If you can't keep your secure data secure, then what other important things are you also letting slide?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Of which the FAA is apart of, I can say, with absolute certainty, that like every other major entity, there are literally dozens and dozens of systems that are in no way connected to the ATC, or any other network for that matter. Yes they are networked, but so is every desktop and every camera, that does not mean they are not well isolated and secure from each other.
FAA has well over 10k hosts (desktops, servers, etc etc), its unfortunate, but expected that many of those hosts are probably vulnerable to something. But at the same time, critical systems (ATC for example), are generally isolated from the basic FAA backbone, and on a closed network.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Windows cannot find Control Tower. Hit any key to continue.
If the readership and editors of /. can't seem to correctly grasp the difference between 'hacked' and 'cracked', how do we expect the mainstream press to ever come even close to getting it?
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
Thanks Bill - enjoy your retirement.
you had me at #!
Existence of UFO's? Like a certain UK hacker...
If there was any place that might have this stuff its the ATC systems
Opps. There goes the doorbell. I wonder if it is the Feds trying to find their way out of a paper bag?
When W got in, his admin pushed the gov to move towards Windows. What a nightmare. Hopefully, Obama will be a bit more sane than this.
There's only one way to solve all these identity thefts: store everything (personal information, financial data, emails, etc) in just ONE single place. It is easier to protect one place instead of 100. Perhaps the RFID chip is the true solution to all our security problems, starting with identity theft, email spam, terrorism, credit card mess, etc.
This is clearly a job done by those gay muslim communist terrorists that did the 9/11 attack and from which we need to protect our children at any cost, even if that cost is our own freedom.
God. 9/11. Terrorists. National Security.
Teh Fatal Death Killer Remote Control Module of Deadly Doom.
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that if they are using windows AND somebody connects a laptop with a worm, then it can grab data and send it back. It is Amazing how insecure systems are that are ASSUMED not to be on the net.
...and recommends that all employees purchase this credit monitoring service to protect against identity theft.
Dear Colleagues: I want to alert you that the Cyber Security Management Center identified some unusual activity from an FAA administrative server last week. An investigation revealed that the server was breached by a hacker. Most of the 48 breached files were test files used for application development. Two of these files contained names and social security numbers. One of them contained information on more than 45,000 employees and retirees who were on FAA rolls as of the first week of February 2006. Medical information from the hacked files was encrypted and not identifiable. We are moving swiftly to identify short-term and long-term measures â" procedural and technological â" to prevent such incidents from recurring. All current and former employees who are affected will receive a letter shortly alerting them to this event. In addition, we are posting information in the form of FAQs on the employee and public web sites, and we will update that information, via the web and other channels, should the investigation reveal more information. We also are setting up a toll-free hotline to answer employee calls related to this event. We will continue our efforts to further protect our computer security systems and will keep you informed as the investigation continues. Lynne Osmus Acting FAA Administrator
Another illustration of how safe our government made the internet by making it a major crime to hack our networks. It used to be that we could find our way into networks and heckle the administrators. By the rules of the game, we let the admins know what we did and how. That was fun :) and kept our networks secure. Now, it can land you in prison. With all of this safety, how many of you know of middle school kids that got caught hacking into 'secure' systems within the past 10 years? What will happen if a hostile agency really wants to steal our data our bring us down?
I really should get off my butt and get those glasses/contacts like I keep saying I will. For a second there I thought some foreign entity discovered our method of raising young kids to be farmers and how to determine if your cow had been eating from onion patches by merely drinking the milk the cow produces.
Vote for Pedro!
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
This is on the same day Microsoft announced you could take control of an Exchange server by sending an email to it?
Why would anyone want to hack FAAngband ?