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White House Confirms Chinese Cyberattack
New submitter clam666 writes "White House sources partly confirmed that U.S. government computers — reportedly including systems used by the military for nuclear commands — were breached by Chinese hackers. From the article: 'The attempted hack used 'spear phishing,' in which an attacker sends an email to a specific target that uses familiar phrases in hopes that the recipient will follow links or download attachments that unleash the hacker's malware. None of the White House's secure, classified computer systems were affected, said the official, who reached out to POLITICO after the Free Beacon story appeared — without having been asked for comment. Nor had there been any attempted breach of a classified system, according to the official.'"
I call right-wing partisan beatup.
Stupid talking point for dumb people, who don't realize that in real life, a crime can't be solve in 40 minutes, like on CSI: Miami.
Key word: "reportedly".
The initial report claimed that those were the systems that were compromised. The White House insider denied that those systems had been compromised, but confirmed that a non-classified network had been compromised.
The press is most likely wrong. I've been on the news a couple of times, and they always get something wrong.
Any classified info is airgapped, end of story. I can do drawings on the [system] on the same computer I'm using for /. The vast, vast majority of drawings are not classified. (I joke that part of the OpSec is that if we get captured, I tell them everything I know, and when they fall asleep, we tiptoe out of the room. "In this circuit, we use cable LS2SJ-14. But in this circuit, we went to LS2SJ-12. Hey, PAY ATTENTION!" So like I was saying, we used LS2SJ-12 here...) If I want to look at anything that's classified, or even something that's CG, I have to do the following:
1. Have the clearance and the need to know.
2. Get a copy of the document sent to me, usually by FedEx.
3. Get a supervisor and go to the secure room, sign in, close the blinds and the door.
4. Get the HDD from the safe.
5. Check the computer, then put in the HDD.
6. Power up the computer. It's a stand-alone machine, that's what I was checking for.
7. Work.
8. Finish working. Print up stuff or burn it onto a disk. Fill out the form that shows that another copy of the material exists.
9. Power down the machine and put the HDD back in the safe.
10. Sign out of the secure room.
11. Mail the printout or CD to whoever it was that wanted it.
And that's for CG stuff. The TS stuff is watched constantly by people with weapons.
If someone can hack their way into a system where the info is not only powered off, but in a separate room from the equipment that can read it, inside a safe, then it's time to give the fuck up.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Shame on you samzenpus. The white house has only confirmed that an unclassified computer has been hacked. Not one capable of nuclear commands, not that it was a Chinese attack.