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NBC Report: Russian Hackers Behind Attack On Pentagon Mail System

Posted by timothy on from the they-were-just-drawn-to-the-shape dept.

New submitter packetspike alerts us to a story at CNBC, according to which U.S. officials have told NBC News that Russian hackers are behind a "sophisticated cyberattack" against the unclassified email system used by the Pentagon's Joint Staff , which has since been shut down and taken off line. "According to the officials, the "sophisticated cyber intrusion" occurred sometime around July 25 and affected some 4,000 military and civilian personnel work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff." The story claims that it's unclear whether the mail-system's attackers were backed by the Russian government. (Expect more to come on this story.)

9 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. "sources," eh? "US officials" you say? by r-diddly · · Score: 3, Insightful

    On the one hand, this type of attack happens all the time and is entirely plausible. On the other hand, the US continues to try to antagonize Russia and propagandize US citizens, and unnamed sources don't exactly speak well for journalistic quality.

    1. Re:"sources," eh? "US officials" you say? by TWX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Russia has been in an antagonistic relationship with "The West" for hundreds of years. For a time it was France. For a time it was the United Kingdom. For a time it was the Nordic countries. This current round of antagonism goes back to WWII and Russia getting the crap beat out of it by Germany before the US and the UK opened a second front.

      Foreign leaders often end up as propaganda. In my relatively short time on this earth I've seen Arafat, Papa Doc, Manuel Noriega, Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, and probably others that I can't remember used by the media to drive ratings. If you randomly sampled Americans you'd probably find they only know Hussein, but it took two wars and a long occupation for that connection to be made.

      Vladimir Putin will probably be just as forgotten to Americans as most of the rest of these men.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re:"sources," eh? "US officials" you say? by Princeofcups · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This current round of antagonism goes back to WWII and Russia getting the crap beat out of it by Germany before the US and the UK opened a second front.

      And you complain about THEM believing the propaganda? We may have helped the war in Eastern Europe end sooner, but after summer 1943, the eventual victor was never in doubt.

      --
      The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
    3. Re:"sources," eh? "US officials" you say? by nofx911 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Odd how everyone makes a big deal of the russians shooting down a commercial airliner... the Americans did the exact same thing with USS Vincennes.

      The USS Vincennes incident is also "indisputable" but thankfully was explained away by "scenario completion syndrome"

      The USA Government did acknowledge that it shot down the aircraft and did agree to pay compensation to the families. "As part of the settlement, the United States did not admit legal liability but agreed to pay on an ex gratia basis US$61.8 million, amounting to $213,103.45 per passenger, in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims."

      Source:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    4. Re:"sources," eh? "US officials" you say? by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 2

      He was also very angry that technical assistance to the Soviet Union was limited; heavy bombers and other large war machines were not sent to the Soviet Union.

      A couple of things:

      The USA sent more tanks to the USSR than they did to the UK.

      Oddly, even though the USSR built an enormous number of reasonably well-designed tanks (T-34/76 had some really superior features, as well as a couple of really sucky ones, such as the commander having to load the gun, T-34/85 fixed most of those problems, but introduced its own set of issues (the chassis really wasn't up to supporting the enlarged turret)), they never sent any of them to the UK in the early part of the war when it would have been easier for the USSR to do so than it was for the USA to do so...

      The USSR had no real use for heavy bombers, since it requires an enormous amount of trained manpower to make them effective, which the Russians never had. Note that it was enormously difficult for US to do it, and we had the industrial base already in place. As is, we DID send them some tens of thousands of ground-attack planes.

      Oddly, even though the Russians produced some pretty decent Frontal Aviation (ground attack) planes themselves, they never sent any to the UK.

      In other words, frankly, the logic that said that we owed the Russians support in their war against Germany is...interesting. But it's a pile of steaming...something.

      --

      "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
    5. Re:"sources," eh? "US officials" you say? by Xest · · Score: 2

      "Never the less, Stalin was very, very angry with the United States and with the United Kingdom as his country lost territory and people to the Germans while he perceived the US and UK as not helping with the war itself. He was also very angry that technical assistance to the Soviet Union was limited; heavy bombers and other large war machines were not sent to the Soviet Union. "

      Um, no:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      The USSR received a phenomenal amount of support from Britain and the US. As anyone who has read my posts on this topic knows I'm incredibly critical of modern day Russia, but to give the Russian's credit where it's due, they even recognise this to this day, even under the current staunchly anti-Western regime:

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e...

      The Arctic convoys and equipment delivered is something that Russia has always been deeply grateful for and is one of the few things that is actually not a bone of contention between America/Britain and Russia.

      In fact, even after the war, relations weren't terribly bad, and this led to one of the biggest mistakes we in the UK made before things turned sour - we sold Russia our world leading jet engine technology, allowing them to create the MiG-15.

      Most of the tension between Russia and the West came about with the way Russia was managing territory it had seized after World War II, the politics of the early UN and the whole Korea thing rather than anything that happened before Germany and Japan's surrender.

  2. Joe Isuzu by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Russian... because it's America's newest great satan.

    Sophisticated... because no script kid could poke through very smart protections.

    Broklyn Bridge... because I can sell it to you for a very good price.

  3. Re:We should believe this when... by Vokkyt · · Score: 2

    I'd say you should read the article, but then you'd post complaining I owe you 20 seconds of your time back.

    The article is incredibly shallow and leaves absolutely everything to be desired. There are no details on the attack, no explanation as to why government officials think it's Russia. In fact, as the result of either a confused spokesperson or poor journalism (both?), the article isn't even clear if the Government thinks it's government sanctioned or not.

    The officials say its not clear whether the attack was sanctioned by the Russian government or conducted by individuals. But, given the scope of the attack, "It was clearly the work of a state actor," the officials say.[entire quote sic]

    The article just lacks any substance whatsoever and the quotes from the government give no justification for the term "sophisticated cyber intrusion", as they stated.

    You don't even need to bring biases and suspicion/distrust of the US government into it to question the validity of the article, as it says very little on its own. There are no facts presented, just claims by the US Government and some fun descriptions by a bored copywriter at NBC.

    Personally, I believe it to just be a propaganda fluff piece; the word choices used are similar to statements made about Flame/Stuxnet and their kin when researching pointed the finger at the US/Israel. The article ends with some exaggerated description "...took the aggressive step of shutting down the entire Joint Staff unclassified email system", which is a weird way to say they took the system down for cleansing. The article plays up the sophistication of the attack to make it seem like a serious threat, only to slip in a sucker punch of "...but they didn't get anything important! Don't worry!".

  4. Ever wonder... by wardrich86 · · Score: 2

    We always hear about all these hacks on the US, but have you ever wondered how many times the US has successfully hacked these other countries? Never really thought about it until now.