Slashdot Mirror
China Denies Responsibility For US Government Data Breach
schwit1 writes: On Friday, Beijing responded to allegations from Washington that China was responsible for a cyberattack on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management that compromised the personal data of some 4 million government employees. The accusations, China's foreign ministry said, are "irresponsible" and "groundless." The OPM breach is the latest in a string of cyber 'incidents' that have coincidentally occurred in the wake of the Pentagon's new cyber strategy.
ZeroHedge argues, "Whether or not the most recent virtual attack on the U.S. did indeed emanate from China or one of Washington's other so-called "cyberadversaries" (the list includes Iran, Russia, and North Korea) will likely never be known the public, but rest assured the blame will be placed with a state actor so as to ensure the DoD has some precedent to refer to when, for whatever reason, the Pentagon decides it's time to deploy an "offensive" cyberattack later on down the road."
Irrespective of where the attack originated, it appears obsolete technology was ultimately to blame, because as Bloomberg reports, "Einstein" wasn't much help in preventing the intrusion: "It's behind schedule, the result of inter-agency fights over privacy, control and other matters, and only about half of the government was protected when the hackers raided OPM's databases last December. It's also, by the government's own admission, already obsolete. Over the last several months, U.S. officials have said that perimeter-based defenses such as Einstein, even backed by the National Security Agency's own corps of hackers, can never prevent break-ins."
ZeroHedge argues, "Whether or not the most recent virtual attack on the U.S. did indeed emanate from China or one of Washington's other so-called "cyberadversaries" (the list includes Iran, Russia, and North Korea) will likely never be known the public, but rest assured the blame will be placed with a state actor so as to ensure the DoD has some precedent to refer to when, for whatever reason, the Pentagon decides it's time to deploy an "offensive" cyberattack later on down the road."
Irrespective of where the attack originated, it appears obsolete technology was ultimately to blame, because as Bloomberg reports, "Einstein" wasn't much help in preventing the intrusion: "It's behind schedule, the result of inter-agency fights over privacy, control and other matters, and only about half of the government was protected when the hackers raided OPM's databases last December. It's also, by the government's own admission, already obsolete. Over the last several months, U.S. officials have said that perimeter-based defenses such as Einstein, even backed by the National Security Agency's own corps of hackers, can never prevent break-ins."
China denies responsibility. So what?
They'd never admit to anything, nor would the US government, if they possibly could.
The shock would be if one of them were to take responsibility.
Seriously, what else is new? China will deny anything by default, as they always do. Not that they're the only ones playing this game - remember that Clapper fellow? or the russian tsar^H forever president?
As for the ZH comment, that's clown reasoning. Since when did the DoD need a precedent for cyberwarfare?