Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Chinese Hackers Infiltrate US Army Database, Compromise Safety of Dams

Posted by samzenpus on from the protect-ya-neck dept.

coolnumbr12 writes "Chinese hackers have infiltrated a sensitive U.S. Army database that contains information about the vulnerabilities of thousands of dams located throughout the United States. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' National Inventory of Dams (NID) has raised concerns that information gathered in the hack could help China carry out a cyber-attack on the national electrical power grid."

3 of 256 comments (clear)

  1. Real reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    quoted from "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5642408"

    Of course they can, what makes you think they aren't?

    But a more interesting question is to look at what information is presented and what is missing. How much is new, how much is old. Then on policy stories like this one I sometimes pop over to the senate web site and look at what's coming up on the senate calendar [1] and oh look, on May 7th they are having a hearing to talk about

          Hearings to examine the Department of the Air Force in
          review of the Defense Authorization Request for fiscal
          year 2014 and the Future Years Defense Program.

    Hmm, who is in charge of Cyber Command? Why it's the Air Force! Who would have guessed.

    (yes I can be that cynical)

  2. Re:how is this not an act of war? by sabri · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is there proof that it actually was a Chinese citizen behind the keyboard? All they did so far is trace the origin back to a Chinese IP address.

    Even if the culprit turned out to be a person with Chinese citizenship, it could very well be the same thing as some pimply faced youth somewhere in a fly-over state hacking into a Chinese database. It does not have to be related to the government. However, if it is, China has some explanation to do.

    I'm also wondering whether or not the DOD is purposely saying "it's the Chinese" to avoid people asking them "why don't you secure your shit better?".

    --
    I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
  3. Re:how is this not an act of war? by AK+Marc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How often are they from the US? Russia? And do you think it might be related to the reports that China has the greatest number of zombies?

    --
    Learn to love Alaska