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Computer Spies Breach $300B Fighter-Jet Project
suraj.sun writes "Computer spies have broken into the Pentagon's $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project — the Defense Department's costliest weapons program ever — according to current and former government officials familiar with the attacks. Similar incidents have also breached the Air Force's air-traffic-control system in recent months, these people say. In the case of the fighter-jet program, the intruders were able to copy and siphon off several terabytes of data related to design and electronics systems, officials say, potentially making it easier to defend against the craft."
What kind of connection do you need to have to get away with several terabytes of data before someone notices? Users on my network get pissy when someone downloads a few dozen megs.
the secret data wasn't on the internet, according to the article. It was not compromised. Only "sensitive" data was compromised. So while they might be able to infer information about the fighter, and its capabilities, they don't have the design and code for it.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
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Note that Chinese intruders succeeded in numerous attempts at downloading information related to the F-35 jet fighter. After the 1st such attempt, American intelligence would have become aware of the incident.
If you were a smart intelligence officer, what would you do after the 1st attempt?
You would not publicly announce the breach of security. Rather, you would plant false data into the same computer which was compromised. When the Chinese hacker returns to it to download even more information, then he would get gigabytes of fake data.
The aim is for the Chinese military to develop countermeasures against F-35 performance characteristics that does not exist. When the actual F-35 is deployed, it will defeat those countermeasures and deliver its nuclear payload to Beijing -- on time and on target.
It's not the DoD, it's the Department of State. Stupid ITAR. I have to deal with it, because I (used to) manufacture a small amount of small arms ammunition (largely specialty loads for uncommon, or almost extinct cartridges, you might say) for consumption ONLY in the US. Not only do you have to register fingerprints, bodily fluids and your first born son with the BATF to get the license to manufacture ammo for sale, you have to pay the DoS about 1700 a year, to register as a manufacturer.
I didn't know about ITAR upfront, and after updating their policies, and only really began learning about it after the BATF reported me to the DoS after several years of putting along, manufacturing about 6000 rounds a year and having fun--it didn't pay a whole lot, but it was a part time business that was actually growing. The back fees put me out, and I had to rescind my 06 FFL for making ammo to avoid going bankrupt.
The premise is, it's supposed to keep our military secrets from falling into enemy hands, but it has such a broad scope that it effects tons of people who don't work on anything remotely sensitive--and good luck trying to get an exemption. It might not be so bad, but it effects lots of people doing no exporting whatsoever, and it also affects academics doing research in fields which are not always so obviously related to armaments... It only adds insult to injury, to see that all of this registration bullshit fails so completely in protecting the REAL secrets. Though, I'm not surprised to learn that it was a government office which was compromised.
It's all the more more frustrating to know that they won't learn a fucking thing from this. If only the pentagon were forced to pay a multi-million dollar fee to the DoS, like a private corporation would.