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Old Worm Digs New Dirt At Pentagon

Posted by Soulskill on from the fool-me-twice dept.

ColdWetDog writes "Remember the Agent.BTZ worm that caused significant problems at military installations back in 2008? Now, three years after what the Pentagon called the most significant breach of US military networks ever, new versions of the malware blamed for the attack are still roiling US networks."

16 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. malware infiltrated computer systems? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "The malware at issue, known as "agent.btz," infiltrated the computer systems of the U.S. Central Command in 2008" link

    Don't you mean someone opened an attachment in Microsoft Exchange or clicked on a URL in Microsoft Internet Explorer, or plugged a USB device into a computer running Microsoft Windows.

    Name : Worm:W32/Agent.BTZ

    Category: Malware

    Type: Worm

    Platform: W32 link

  2. Proprietary hardware by Trilobyte · · Score: 4, Funny

    The government should go back to running on DEC Alphas and Data General mainframes. Mark Microsoft technology as export-only.

  3. Re:EARL:Y BIRD GETS THE WORM !! by SatanClauz · · Score: 1

    ... and the second mouse gets the cheese?

  4. Ratcheting the fear for the masses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Anyone care to speculate on the end game for this build up of global "cyberwar/cybercrime" activity covered by the press?

    1. Re:Ratcheting the fear for the masses by Tx · · Score: 2

      Press gets bored of over-hyping insignificant malware events, as signs of imminent cyber-apocalypse stubbornly fail to materialise, moves on to something more interesting?

      --
      Oh no... it's the future.
    2. Re:Ratcheting the fear for the masses by Charliemopps · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The government grants themselves even more power to circumvent the constitution while passing legislation absolving businesses from any legal mandate to secure themselves from what is clearly an unstoppable army of cyber criminals?

    3. Re:Ratcheting the fear for the masses by SilentStaid · · Score: 1

      I'd like to second that, I see this fading from the public spotlight in a few months and suddenly LulzSec and Anonymous will be backburner news again.

    4. Re:Ratcheting the fear for the masses by Jeng · · Score: 1

      Same as any other spying. The end game is to know before hand who will win a battle.

      --
      Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
    5. Re:Ratcheting the fear for the masses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you missed all of the scare mongering about China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, etc. trying to hack America's precious digital streams. Former presidential national security advisor and current cyberwar profiteer Richard Clark just had an editoral in the Washington Post this week warning about the cyberArmageddon that'll be launched from China if the government doesn't hire security companies (such as his own) to help the DoD their networks and, well, everyone else's network. The current rash of system breakins isn't limited to Lulzsec, or Anonymous.

    6. Re:Ratcheting the fear for the masses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      thermonuclear war?

    7. Re:Ratcheting the fear for the masses by Huckabees · · Score: 1

      Why do you bother putting your milk in the fridge when it is inevitable that it will expire? Same concept.

  5. Not Funny by bobs666 · · Score: 1

    If you can't secure your software. You should be running software that is securable. You should talk to the Air Force I understand they have some.

    For some of you that do not want to chase that link, It's a Linux Boot CD that uses only local volatile memory so that no untrusted software can exist, after a reboot. The disk has an optional copy of open office and networking software for connecting to secured servers.

    1. Re:Not Funny by gtall · · Score: 1

      Is this the same Air Force which declared about 2 years ago they were going to standardize on Winders and then proceeded to attempt to bottleneck all security through their service? That's the one?

    2. Re:Not Funny by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Dickless lurkstation?

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  6. War vs. standard computing by Shoten · · Score: 1

    "It's very persistent and it keeps evolving," the official said. "You're constantly seeing new, better versions of it. So it's a challenge to keep ahead of it."

    That's not an old worm. That's new worms based on an old worm. And let's face it; this is the activity of a foreign nation, using highly sophisticated methods including, invariably, human agents who are willing to deliberately introduce the malware into military computing environments. It's not the standard "PREEZE CRICKY HERE!!!!" attacks that are behind this. Why is it surprising that there's an effect? Just as bullets and IEDs cause casualties, cyber attacks cause effects. It's how war works. Don't fall into the ridiculous frame of mind of imagining a world where the enemy cannot reach out and harm you, even in a cyber realm...it's never been that way with any form of warfare, and never will be. There's always going to be a newer sword, a sharper arrow, a bigger gun.

    --

    For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
  7. NSA Advises Upgrades to Windows 7 by dimethylxanthine · · Score: 1

    Any remember this? NSA Advises Upgrade to Windows 7
    Well, they can eat their fucking radish ;)