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Obama Helicopter Security Breached By File Sharing
Hugh Pickens writes "A company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks has discovered a potentially serious security breach involving President Barack Obama's helicopter. 'We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One, which is the president's helicopter,' says Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, a security company that specializes in peer-to-peer technology. Tiversa was able to track the file, discovered at an IP address in Tehran, Iran, back to its original source. 'What appears to be a defense contractor in Bethesda, Md., had a file-sharing program on one of their systems that also contained highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One,' says Boback, adding that someone from the company most likely downloaded a file-sharing program, typically used to exchange music, without realizing the potential problems. 'I'm sure that person is embarrassed and may even lose their job, but we know where it came from and we know where it went.' Iran is not the only country that appears to be accessing this type of information through file-sharing programs. 'We've noticed it out of Pakistan, Yemen, Qatar and China. They are actively searching for information that is disclosed in this fashion because it is a great source of intelligence.'"
So where's the torrent?
Gee. That's a nice balanced summary, ahead of the histrionic response of "OMG file sharers are breaching national security!"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Tiversa was able to track the file, discovered at an IP address in Tehran, Iran, back to its original source.
.
.
'We've noticed it out of Pakistan, Yemen, Qatar and China. They are actively searching for information that is disclosed in this fashion because it is a great source of intelligence.'
If you use p2p file sharing software to steal music and TV shows - terrorists win.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Torrent link, please?
Res publica non dominetur
I'm pretty sure that stupid/careless employees can leak sensitive information through P2P on any OS. I'm not aware that any of the OSX/nix installs search any less widely for shared folders than the Windows versions.
Stupidity is definitely OS-independent.
A lot of these P2P apps share your entire home or your entire computer by default when you first install them, it's up to you to go in and shut that stuff off, or at least define a specific folder to share from rather than the default.
Tagging this with "windows" isn't fair - it can affect any other system equally, this isn't a software problem, it's a user or developer issue. For example, I've worked on numerous macs with Limewire installed on them that are sharing all the user's music automatically by default.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Is it just me, or does this whole thing seem a bit too topical? I can see this meeting taking place at the Tiversa head office.
CEO - "We need to drum up business! What's a good angle to increase our visibility?"
Marketing Droid One - "Evil powers are undermining our National Security© is tried and true, Sir."
Marketing Droid Two - "It's consistently scored highly in all of our focus groups."
CEO - "That was with the last administration! We an angle for today people!" (makes slicing hand gesture)
Up and Coming Sycophant - "I know! The helicopter! We can say that someone stole the plans to the President's helicopter!"
CEO - "That might just work. Tie that in to the usual National Security line and send out a press release!"
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
Nope. Everyone is assuming this is a torrent because it is the most popular form of file sharing. Many of the old school peer to peer file sharing apps *by default* shared your documents folder. You could turn it off, but most people don't.
Many confidential files have been leaked this way. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Citigroup-Customer-Data-Leaked-on-LimeWire/
There used to even be guides to tell you what were common digital camera prefixes so you could do a search for CIM*.jpg or DSC*.jpg and browse people's private folders.
If you were a company or nation involved in espionage, getting on a p2p network and searching for files with obvious names would be a good place to start.
http://bizsecurity.about.com/b/2008/07/08/limewire-and-working-at-home.htm
It isn't just limewire of course, that's just the first one I could remember from years ago. There's also eMule and many others.
In addition to firing the person responsible, the entire IT staff should be reviewed if not fired. My guess though is that this is some ceo who specifically told IT that he was exempt from the security rules. C*Os are the biggest security risk because they tell people that the security rules don't apply to them. Remember that cdw? commercial about the boss who infects an entire office because he let's his kid use the company network?
Wow. BitTorrent is really freaking the control freaks out isn't it? I guess the Pirate Bay trial must be going worse than they thought....
Send your spendthrift head of state this
Should be *banned* for security areas. If you need 'outside' for a valid reason you provide a dedicated machine for that purpose.
Its pretty simple. That company should be fired, not just the fool that caused the leak.
And i don't care what OS it runs, anything less then the above is plain reckless.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So now that they have the plans for Marine One. They can save bundles in R&D and finally build Ayatollah One.
Couldn't resist. :)
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy - Benjamin Franklin"
None of these ideas are foolproof, someone dumb enough would eventually screw up anyway. But that is not the point, the point is that there are simple engineering steps that can be taken to reduce the amount of inadvertantly shared data.
Football Odds
... and this is why you have draconian policies in many companies about installing ANY unapproved software. I've seen people complain about "just let me do my job" and install anything they want, but the fact of the matter is that it only takes one dumb-ass like this to wreak major havoc.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Uh, data like this shouldn't even be on a computer with a physical link to the internet at all. Classified data should stay on classified networks. Period.
I know a guy at a defense contractor. They isolate their networks containing classified data. If they need to remove a file from the room they reimage a desktop with a known safe image, copy the file onto that PC from a CD burned from a classified PC. They then scrub the files with software that does stuff like wipe unallocated space, check for word versions, PDF comments, etc. Then that desktop is used to burn a new CD with just the intended files. Then they securely wipe the desktop. That one CD that was created in this fashion is then allowed to leave the room. Note that this is the gist of how it works - some details may be less than accurate (obviously I'm not privy to the exact procedures, but this is the general level of rigor involved).
Even if somebody installed Kazaa or its like on one of the computers in that room it wouldn't be able to leak data - there are no network connections that are attached to the internet. If somebody needs to check email or browse the web they leave the room (carrying nothing with them) and go to another desk in a regular office area, which has a fairly secure network but something more akin to what you'd find in any decently secured corporate network. Of course, installing kazaa in the first place would be difficult since you're not supposed to carry anything into or out of the classified areas - I don't know if they get searched at the door but you would certainly be fired and potentially prosecuted if you were caught doing it intentionally.
Important datacenters like those found in stock exchanges / etc are similar. The datacenter is secured, network access is very carefully controlled, and to do anything important you need to have physical access to a room with cameras pointed everywhere and every task involves two people at the keyboard at all times.
There is no excuse for these kinds of breaches. Strong security isn't actually hard. It is certainly expensive, and it is certainly inconvenient. However, it really isn't hard - you just need to be methodical.
employee?? The company should be toast.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So whats the high/low on this person having a GitMo vacation??
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Funny how this should happen so recently after Obama and McCain publically agreed that the plan to replace the aging Marine One fleet should be cancelled...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/us/politics/24chopper.html
If I worked for US counterintelligence you can bet I would develop and plant fake leaks that sound just like this sort of thing. Then again, I may be giving too much credit. Occam's Razor prevails.
plz seed
Actually, it's even harder to get a file off a classified network than that. At least where I work, any CD or DVD burned off a classified network is automatically classified at the same level as the network it came from. If you want to move a file to an unclassified network from a classified one, that process is known as a downgrade and requires the entire file to inspected as PLAIN TEXT. What about .doc or .ppt files you ask? It can't be done - there's no approved process for it. Actually, that's not 100% true - you (meaning someone with proper permissions) can print the file in it's entirety, read it over, and scan it onto an unclassified network using an optical scanner.
Jealously hoarding mod points since 2007.
Don't worry, I am sure the Iranian ISP has a three strikes policy and terrorists will be soon cut off the internet.
Also I've discovered that quite often, the reason people want the ability to install software is precisely because they want shit they know they shouldn't have at work.
I work for a university, so there isn't a hard and fast rule on admin for users. We'd like that nobody has it, because there's less problems, but due to various reasons including academic freedom and research groups owning their own systems, we have to allow it when professors request it.
Now you might assume that the reason a grad student would want admin access is just to make their work easier. They can install software when needed, without asking IT. In some cases, that is it, though there is still software you have to ask us to install since it is centrally licensed. In other cases, there are software/hardware combos for particular research that just won't run without admin. So we certainly get some legit requests.
However there are more than a few grad students that get admin, and then set about installing shit they shouldn't. Normally we find out fairly quick because some of it tends to be infected with viruses. The whole reason they want admin is not because it'll make their research easier, but because they want to install P2P apps, Skype, and so on to screw around.
I'm willing to bet the same holds true at companies. I'm sure some people need software that IT doesn't install by default to make their job easier. However I'm sure other people want to install stuff that isn't work related, and that's why they don't ask the IT department to do it and instead insist on getting admin access. While some people might say "So what? People goof off at work, why not let them?" this shows the reason. The reason isn't that IT is worried about you goofing off, the reason is they are worried about security problems.
You know, I'm usually one to go with Hanlon's Razor (never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity), but with the VH-71 Marine One replacement program getting the stinkeye for it's ridiculous cost overruns, for once the conspiracy thing has me suspicious. It's likely the plans being on P2P part is entirely coincidence, and the publicity of the incident is the conspiracy, but I can see it happening. The question now is, which Marine One plans are they? Are they the plans for the helicopters currently in service, and the conspiracy is trying to save the VH-71 program, or were they the VH-71 plans and the conspiracy is trying to kill the VH-71 program?
Really though, it's probably just unrelated coincidence. Most things like this are completely unplanned. Conspiracies require competence, and you just don't find that in government much.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I'd like every program I run to be in a sandbox. For example, not having access to a single file without my permission.
It's pretty trivial to attempt this sort of thing with either Windows or any UNIXish OS. If you do, it shouldn't take long to figure out why it's completely impractical.
What are the chances this P2P source was installed by malware? Is there anything active in the wild that does that?
What sort of security depends on the secrecy of a helicopter's blueprints? Honestly.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
I am so tired of this sort of sensationalized reporting.
It's all part of an agenda, as I see it, about the "horrors of p2p technologies."
So let me get this straight, (at least, according to the headline).
"File Sharing" actually "breached" Obama's helicopter. How did file sharing accomplish such a feat?
Did file sharing hire some elite spies? Maybe some mossad agents?
What I think is that a company that manufactures products to snoop of file sharers has a great headline to
promote their business.
What the article REALLY amounts to, is that some defense contractor fucked up by not following security procedures.
if he had left them on a table at McDonalds the outcome could have been the same.
Hell....lose his/her job?
If they're lucky that will be all they lose. When you're doing DoD work for the Feds....you sign some pretty heavy forms about your responsibilities and the ramifications if you break them....accident or not.
If this asshole did this with what I would have to guess was secure information....putting these plans on a non-secure computer, that alone can get you some heavy legal problems, and possibly jail time.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Shortly after 9/11 one of the principal architectural firms working on the Pentagon renovation posted all of their CAD drawings on a publicly available ftp server. I was working for a subcontractor at the time. When I contacted them to ask "WTF are you doing? Why not just post an ad in the Washington Post offering to give away all this information?" I was told by the system admin that it wasn't a problem because they hid the files on the ftp server using "an obscure folder name that nobody will be able to figure out". In other words, they posted the Pentagon's infrastructure in a folder called "/erwtn0tun-29358yt29832hncnf2h2ui2h 3fh3nc/" on their public ftp server because nobody would be able to find it in the open!!! Except I did. When I mentioned it to other people the response was "well, you can't bite the hand that feeds you" and all that rot. Of course, the ftp server was running on MS IIS and their web server was misconfigured at the same time so you could see everything ELSE on the server... Government & security (to me) are laughable.
Who Cares ????...... i don't...
If the Rebels have obtained a complete technical readout of this helicopter it is possible, however unlikely, that they might find a weakness, and exploit it.
Does the helicopter have a long trench leading up to a ventilation shaft?
Pretty much any kind of security. Keeping the blueprints secret means keeping the capabilities (range, speed, altitude) secret as well as keeping the nature of any active or passive defenses secret.
Now I know the Slashdot hivemind will respond with their usual rote mantra - "but security through obscurity is bad"... But on this, they are completely wrong. (Mostly because their notions of security consist of repeating what they've read by various talking heads.) Security through obscurity, as one layer of an overall security plan, is extremely valuable because the black hats cannot prepare in advance to meet a countermeasure which they are unaware of.
Almost 200 comments, and not a single ROFLcopter...
You guys are slipping...
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
It's a custom helicopter (just like air force 1 is a custom plane). You could for example get some sort of unique radar response from the plane, telling you the location of the helicopter, or worse, giving you something to program a sidewinder with.
Same goes for air force 1. If you had the specs of it's fof tranceiver you could wait until it's crossing the atlantic, then launch a rocket towards it which they have no chance to evade.
Basically it would reduce the problem of killing the president of the USA from successfully attacking a wide range of security forces, just to make sure you cover all angles, to the problem of making 1 tiny pinpoint strike. With the blueprints or a location indicator you'd could execute a pinpoint strike that would take involve almost no risk for the perpetrators and would sure as hell kill the prsident.
No security measure is 100% reliable - not using a security tool because it isn't completely reliable is stupid.
well exactly. If a non-expert can bring down your helicopter using nothing more than information gleaned from a wiring-diagam of it, then you've got more serious issues to worry about.
Like for example, the blueprints of the base-model helicopter being public anyway (covering all the systems which keep it in the air, as opposed to the assorted crap installed as special-equipment that tends to have no effect on flyability other than being heavy and consuming power)
Shhhh! The bad guys read Slashdot too. Don't let them realize the truth!
"They" can scratch and scrape for information all they want. Doesn't matter in the end; the US can still obliterate any adversary.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
And now you will witness the power of this fully operational helicopter!
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
The problem you really seem to have is that somehow you believe you whole country comes to a stop when a president dies. They are just another elected official, they whole idea of commander in chief is crazy. The whole power base should be distributed with clear areas of responsibility and liability, less focus on the president and much more focus on all the other positions, positions which in reality should be by individuals who have been elected to a position of trust by the people.
The whole idea of random political appointments with only limited oversight is not really all that healthy and is readily abuses. At the very least all major positions within the administration should be filled by sitting members from the house of representatives, you are already paying them enough, why employ additional political hanger ons.
All decisions by the administration should be subject to to continual review by the supposedly 'representative' houses and in reality should reflect the views of many people rather than just one. You are no electing a King or Queen and in many countries the 'president' is just a figure head whose power is basically limited to ensuring that the rest of governments sticks to the legislated rules.
So lose a president should basically be just a 'whoops', replace them with another and the system keeps ticking along fine, where one person can have such a profound influence over everybody else's lives even for just eight years is really wrong and people will suffer for it, as the recent past has clearly demonstrated.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Source ?
It's Windows, you're not allowed to see the source.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Except that Windows has such a cult following that it's likely the authorities will turn a blind eye to the incident. Take the case where Windows somehow got onto base computers in Afghanistan [usnews.com] and were subsequently owned by malware letting still more outsiders into the network. No one's been prosecuted publicly despite there certainly being a paper trail leading to the culprits.
You apparently have no clue how DOD classified networks work such as SIPRnet or JWICs. Anything classified has no connection to the unclassified internet. The SIPRnet and JWICS system passes though a KG-175, which in turns encrypts the traffic, to go though the normal network. If for example a windows SIPRnet, or JWICs system gets comprised with spyware. The only one who could touch these systems is people on the SIPRnet or JWICS. Just because the machine is comprised doesn't make the computer decide to send unencrypted data or open holes in the network, since any traffic leaving the network has to go though the KG-175. Now if some idiot user decides to connect a classified system to network, that's a much bigger issue that they call data spillage.
Any computer not classified is essentially on the NIPRnet (or unclassified network) for example, but the only data that is allowed on it is up to sensitive information such as SSNs, random forms, and TPS reports. Even flight schedules are not supposed to be NIPRnet.