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Dept. of Energy Compromised 159 Times Over Four-Year Period
An anonymous reader writes: USA TODAY obtained records through a Freedom of Information Act request indicating that the U.S. Department of Energy was targeted by over a thousand cyberattacks between October 2010 and October 2014. 159 of the attacks were successful in compromising some level of security. "Energy Department officials would not say whether any sensitive data related to the operation and security of the nation's power grid or nuclear weapons stockpile was accessed or stolen in any of the attacks, or whether foreign governments are believed to have been involved. ... The National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency within the Energy Department responsible for managing and securing the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile, experienced 19 successful attacks during the four-year period, records show. ... Records show 53 of the 159 successful intrusions from October 2010 to October 2014 were 'root compromises,' meaning perpetrators gained administrative privileges to Energy Department computer systems."
They should really install a UTM appliance
eom
If you think that the govt has ever had security under any administration clearly you have never dealt with govt IT systems. Do you seriously think that any administration has the time or effort to micromanage their IT staff when they can barely get things like department heads in place. Obama has a lot of problems but this one is not one of his exclusively.
Well, Obama promised that his administration would be more open. He just didn't mention that this would be due to non-US governmental agents. (OK, Snowden used to be a government agent, but he hasn't been since he started making Obama's promise true.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Srsly! Sarah Palin for Secretary of the Department of Energy.
Trump/Palin 2016!!!
Those are only the ones they know about. I find it unreasonable to assume there were no attacks that went undetected. With so many people getting root, it can't be that hard to cover your tracks if you leave any.
As much as I detest Obama, it's not just his administration. Incompetence and government go together like peanut butter and jelly.
The problem is an over-bloated bureaucracy that doesn't know its ass from a hole in the ground. And for that we can blame both parties and 99.9% of all politicians.
I that run by the same government that wants to collect all our private data for security reasons?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I log in a root to the server of my HOA:
Last failed login: Sat Sep 12 11:52:54 PDT 2015 from 43.229.53.41 on ssh:notty
There were 59462 failed login attempts since the last successful login.
So over 59000 attempts since last week, on a server with nothing of interest to anyone.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
A talking head telling us what we could read below. Is this the future of the Internet - TELEVISION ..
"Incident reports .. shows a near-consistent barrage of attempts to breach the security of critical information systems that contain sensitive data about the nation's power grid, nuclear weapons stockpile and energy labs."
Have you considered not connecting your critical infrastructure directly to the Internet. The fact that the 'Cyber attackers' can even see your computers shows extreme complacency by whoever is in charge of your 'computers'.
Like the private sector has had a good record on this?
Table-ized A.I.
Are you kidding? It's all moving over to "the cloud". The cheapest rates are Russia, India et. al., so they already got all your secrets. The next step is manipulating the records, for fun, profit or "military exercise" purposes.
The problem with the article is that it is very light on details. How is an attack defined? Does it include a simple port scan or does it require something more targeted and defined? Of systems that were compromised, how many of them were non-sensitive public web servers in a DMZ/TZ and how many of them were internal servers containing sensitive data?
Using the weakest metrics, my employer's external facing network is attacked thousands of times a day. It isn't a matter of if we're being hit by a traffic flood at any given time, but by how many clients and at what rate.
Would be nice if they actually tallied the incidents by severity and general attack type.
Have you considered not connecting your critical infrastructure directly to the Internet. The fact that the 'Cyber attackers' can even see your computers shows extreme complacency by whoever is in charge of your 'computers'.
For all we know, their network wasn't attached to the Internet and that there was an air gap between it and the outside. Problem is, it isn't terribly difficult to insert your own back door. In many cases, you just need a wireless adapter and the proper software. Even if they're not running an IP network, you can encapsulate their traffic and send it through your eavesdropping device.
No. Too inconvenient. Too expensive.
@toejam13: "For all we know .. there was an air gap between it and the outside .. In many cases, you just need a wireless adapter and the proper software" ..
...
a) We do know there wasn't an 'air gap' as the compromised servers were connected to the Internet. That's the meaning behind the words 'cybersecurity breach'.
b) An air gaped computer with a wireless adapter isn't really air gapped.
c) I never mentioned 'air gap'ed
The private sector has an equally poor track record. Consider that Commercial companies built a majority of the IT products. There are so many that do not design with security in mind.
Sounds like they weren't following the guidelines that they recommend for the energy industry.
Time to offend someone
With all the resources of the federal government, are you telling me we can't find someone who is competent enough to plug up these leaks. It's official then, the government hires tools that will follow the union, government, political line instead of competent individuals. Another reason to get rid of government unions so we can start firing these idiots and hire competent people who care more about their country instead of their job.