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China Hacked a Navy Contractor and Secured a Trove of Highly Sensitive Data on Submarine Warfare (washingtonpost.com)
Ellen Nakashima and Paul Sonne, reporting for The Washington Post: Chinese government hackers have compromised the computers of a Navy contractor, stealing massive amounts of highly sensitive data related to undersea warfare -- including secret plans to develop a supersonic anti-ship missile for use on U.S. submarines by 2020, according to American officials. The breaches occurred in January and February, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The hackers targeted a contractor who works for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, a military organization headquartered in Newport, R.I., that conducts research and development for submarines and underwater weaponry. The officials did not identify the contractor. Taken were 614 gigabytes of material relating to a closely held project known as Sea Dragon, as well as signals and sensor data, submarine radio room information relating to cryptographic systems, and the Navy submarine development unit's electronic warfare library. The Washington Post agreed to withhold certain details about the compromised missile project at the request of the Navy, which argued that their release could harm national security.
... it was in the book 'The Cuckoo's Egg'.
Why UNIX?
Just expect that Russia, China, and the USA are always trying this type of espionage on each other and expect that they will occasionally succeed.
I think that horse has bolted and is grazing happily in a field right now.
You'd think a defense contractor would know not to store top secret information on internet accessible machines but I guess there's stupid in every organisation.
What systems are running these computers? I read very often about breaches where a particular OS from Redmond is used....
China is like Mr Garrisons bicycle. Cheap products but they have you at both ends.
Ever seen a knockoff sneaker with Niiikee printed on it that you can wear for 2 weeks before it comes apart? Or an AyePhone X with a 800 x 460 pixel screen and Android running on it? Or a Chinese knockoff of a Ford SUV that crumbles to dust when it hits an obstacle at a mere 30MPH? Well... heeeeere comes the submarine equivalent of that: The engine makes enough noise to be detected from a continent away. The sub can dive to about 150 feet before the hull cracks and everybody on board dies. And when they try to launch missiles from the sub, the missiles launch vertically down, exploding the sea floor... aaand the knockoff submarine as well. Tom Clancy could have written a novel about this: The Hunt For Red Shrimp.
Is it just a coincidence that data on Sea "Dragon" is being reported as stolen by China? If you were to bait a hook for a Chinese hacker, might you consider adding "Dragon" to the bait?
I needed to do this to get plans detailed enough to be able to finally build 1/32 scale models of yours (cool) secret projects, but I promise not to do it again ok?
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Just to remember. There was a time, long ago, when lots of security features were being developed and the NSA and other US security agencies intervened to make that more difficult.
Now, when Trump starts some needless, stupid war against China, many American servicemen's lives will be lost because the NSA failed to do it's basic job - secure the communications and information of the USA. Or more likely, worse, the Chinese will feel bold enough to close off free navigation through the south China sea and eventually be powerful enough to destroy the US economy.
It's not that they weren't warned. They still did it and there are still traitors demanding backdoors in encryption.
I have a hard time believing that in 2018, the gov't & its contractors, aren't locking down national security military secrets better than this. It's so close to unbelievable to me, that I have to wonder if this is misinformation left on a honeypot server. If the US gov't is really this loose with their classified information at this point in history....
The rules for protecting Sensitive data are less stringent than for actually Classified data. (And just because some reporter uses the word 'secret', I'm not convinced from this article that the material was actually classified.)
If classified data was actually placed on a machine that was not properly secured, multiple people should go directly to jail. If this was a breach of a contractor system with 'FOUO' sensitive (but not classified) data, then there's a much higher bar for 'go to jail.' That being said, I'd fully expect there to be substantial consequences against the contractor, up to being kicked off and forbidden to bid on subsequent contracts.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"614 gigabytes" " in January and February"
So they were exfiltrating 10 Gigabytes a day from the contractor's network and nobody noticed?!!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Important info goes in a scif which is air-gaped. Either the info was unimportant, or contractor not adhering to requirements, or buyer didn't require them to maintain a scif(low bid winner exclusion?)
The details matter here.
just line up and pay $1bln you will go back to doing business as usual
Anonimous officials say that some data that cannot be disclosed has been stolen from a contractor which will not be named. This smells o fake news a mile away
If you want to know a lot about development of nuclear submarines and assorted espionage (mostly Russia/US though), look up Blind Man's Bluff on Amazon. Great book.
"Who are you?" "No one of consequence." "I must know." "Get used to disappointment."
... by PIRATES! Arrr!
It will help the Korean and Japanese navies against China.
Not sure why strict IP address controls are not being implemented here.
I mean we read stories all the time where military secrets are stolen all the time and yet it seems like Apple's biggest secrets are never leaked. Maybe they are and maybe most of us can't recognize these, just me asking. Trump has advantage that if any of his secrets are stolen (probably of bankrupt value) or disclosed he can simply shout "fake news" and it's end of discussion.
mfwright@batnet.com
See subject & they are after ANYTHING they can steal there (which IS all they do: China imitated me http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/26/boffins_supercharge_the_hosts_file_to_save_users_plagued_by_dns_outages/
* Naval warfare is how/where the USA would CHOKE THEM OFF & they know it - so they attempt to shore that weakness up via thievery, clearly.
APK
P.S.=> I used to respect the Chinese until I saw all the crooked thieving they pull especially in tech (& I used to think they were an "honorable" people - yes, there's good Chinese individuals though admittedly (too bad rotten ones, like they do for any race/culture, make their entire country look bad))... apk
or just baseless accusations and propaganda as usual?
Just give these guys a shitty internet connection like mine. With this upload I would take ALL of Jan + Feb to steal half of that LOL
The Washington Post agreed to withhold certain details about the compromised missile project at the request of the Navy, which argued that their release could harm national security.
Yeah, it might get out to the Chinese.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Get Gibbs and his team on the case, track down them wily Chinese operatives pronto!
Really, is anyone even surprised at any of this shit anymore? Everything is hackable now, nothing is safe. Remember that at least half of us has had ALL of their financial data stolen from them in the Equifax breach, and by now there's probably a million copies of all of that floating around the world. Meanwhile dickheads in the EU and corporate assholes here in the States are more concerned about 'losing profits to piracy' and will completely ruin the Internet, turn it into a read-only 'service' (like Cable TV, just stupider) in order to accomplish that, and why the ever-loving fuck should they care that there are criminal and military assholes out there that will hack the shit out of our infrastructure (electricity generation, water, natural gas, water service, nuclear reactors, and so on), rob our banks blind, and steal every military and state secret we've got? Doesn't make them money to give a shit about any of that now does it?
Things have got to change.
Of course. Blended right in with the porn browsing.
The Washington Post agreed to withhold certain details ... at the request of the Navy ...
... requested this of the goddam contractor.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Go ahead, tell me it's not Windows. Basically, Microsoft threw an election to Trump and national security to China.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Can we store ANYTHING offline anymore? Russia switched back to physically typed pages for gods sake.
FTFA: The data stolen was of a highly sensitive nature despite being housed on the contractor’s unclassified network.
You've got to assume that anything on a system that's attached to the internet is going to be compromised sooner or later.
We are just kidding ourselves here.
China most likely already paid the "unnamed contractor" cash money for the plans, long ago. They just "hacked" this data to confirm the goods they bought were the real deal (or better yet, to confirm they received ALL the plans for ALL the bells and whistles that were paid for. Even China knows you can't trust those unnamed contractors.).
And for goodness sake. What is the name of the contractor they pilfered this from? The list can't be more than a dozen or so multi national corporations. Why not make it widely available to the public?
How many corporations are involved in the development of submarines? Not many. A quick google search will show these corporations are selling this technology to our "allies" left and right. Corporations that are supposedly aligned with the United States agenda sell us out all the time (by us I mean.. the average U.S. taxpayer).
If the people that run these corporate monstrosities were as patriotic and loyal to the United States as they would have the public believe,
they wouldn't squirrel their money away in tax havens. They would pay their damn share of taxes to help improve the state of our society. They certainly wouldn't always sell out to the highest bidder, because, you know, $$$.
This whole article reeks of a CYA (cover your ass) type of press operation.
Think about it..
China is probably about to launch a sub with "super secret" tech that should be completely locked down (as far as the U.S. taxpayer knows).
In response the soon to be identified contractor's press release will read something like this...
"Gosh! We here at the global branch of "If the Money is Right, We Sell Anything To Any One - Especially Submarine Technology Corporation (TM)" have no idea how China came into possession of this incredible, super secret, highly coveted technology". "Wink, wink, nudge nudge."
"Must have been a hack! And, um.. no money changed hands. Go ahead. Prove money changed hands. We dare you. We have enough lawyers to drive you into bankruptcy if you try. But clearly NO Money Changed Hands!"
"Look over there! Celebrity Boobies!"
Followed by the U.S. Public saying.. "Oh. Boobies! Celebrity Boobies!"
"Submarine Tech.. wha?"
In the meantime, it will eventually be shown the contractor built 90 percent of the facilities needed to create this submarine technology in order to
save money on labor and materials. Then exported it back to the U.S. to be assembled.
Big multi national corporations have no allegiance to any particular country. Just the bottom line. It's all about the $$.
At the end of the day, at least the CEO has his Yacht(s).
And Mansion(s).
And Jets(s).
And small Island(s).
And government official(s).
And banking/financial officer(s).
And Insert obscenely gratuitous item here....
Jeez. I probably should stop ranting now.
Spoke to him here directly on /. (1 of my intellectual heros) in 2014 https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5250561&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=47182047/ & he told me to help make the internet a better place? I was already @ it (the entire discussion tree shows that much parent to his reply there & beneath it).
* :)
APK
P.S.=> Great read that book - imo, it ought to be required reading for security pros (can wipe logs all day, try it on a mirrored log AND a printer putting it out on paper the way Stoll did to trap East Germans & KGB w/ evidence they could NOT wipe)... apk
1. By 'hacked' they meant 'a chinese/chinese american person working at the Contract walked off with a hard drive full of classified information'.
2. By 'hacked' they mean chinese hackers broke into a weakly secured fileserver connected to the internet using legitimate credentials and appearing as a legitimate user downloaded data at a rate their normal developers use data, not resulting in flagging until an audit period days/weeks/months/years later.
Either seems plausible, but 'hacked' seems unnecessary.
More bullshit lies from APK, but that is expected as that is all he can provide.
Like always his proof does not support his claims but instead makes him look like an idiot.
He keeps posting the same BS over and over again even when he says has been proven false.
Must be hard living with severe mental disabilities.
Spamming lying bullshitter APK spams his lying bullshit some more.
The chinese didn't copy or imitate you they did something completely different that happens to share a trivial simplistic obvious feature.
LIke cars having 4 wheels obvious and simplistic.
I know someone first hand who had been translating plans and manuals for cruise missles for a NATO partner country. That was 3 years before there was an official vote to decide wether these would be stationed or not. In the 80ies the peace movement launched large-scale protests agains the CMs, argueing that they could carry nukes. Which is nigh pointless in such a high precision weapon. Word had it that the peace protests where funded and organised by CIA blackops to make the CMs more scary and have the local gouvernment push through agressively to make them even more scary than they are. And to mislead the public and the enemy about their actual purpose.
So year, this could be a honeypot / smokescreen. Not unlikely.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Date of the article link I posted proves differently (since I publicly released the Win32/64 model LONG before) & I do FAR more than YOU or "your kind" (UNIDENTIFIABLE do-nothing "ne'er-do-wells") do - & you're MORE THAN WELCOME to show you have done more & better + earlier (you never do because you haven't & NEVER WILL - you just "hide" + STALK/HARASS me like the pussy punk you are).
* OTHERS SEE YOUR BS & SECOND ME ON IT (& I've many more, want to see them too? Ask) https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12199712&cid=56751614/
APK
P.S.=> You're also WRONG - My hosts engine is the ONLY 1 of ITS KIND that does "hardcoded favorites" @ TOP of hosts for more speed vs. remote DNS in resolution of hostnames to IP address that also secure you vs. DNS security issues (dns poisoning redirects) & tracking on dns request logs... apk
LOL! YOU don't do anything @ all (prove you have, you never do since you = a ZERO "ne'er-do-well" JEALOUS jowie you are by unidentifiable ac posts).
* Don't YOU have ANYTHING BETTER TO DO but STALK ME (obviously PROJECTING you = "AnGrY" (@ yourself do nothing)) like the "ne'er-do-well" DO NOTHING Jealous JOWIE (lol) you clearly are?
APK
P.S.=> Evidently you don't & you don't have the SKILLS to create something our /. peers & LIKE + USE now multiplatform (even in an older lesser model soon to be improve in Win64 too) https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12209260&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=56754750/ that yields more speed/security/reliability for less (bugs/security issues/resource use) vs. any "so-called 'competitor'" (souled out useless OR buggy + inefficient) ... apk
On & your WASTED unidentifiable anonymous "ne'er-do-well" do nothing LAZY unskilled ass https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12209612&cid=56755082/ & also about CHINA doing what I did (only hosts program that does hardcodes for faster & safer than remote DNS resolution in GUI too) https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12209612&cid=56755082/
* Don't YOU have ANYTHING BETTER TO DO but STALK ME (obviously PROJECTING you = "AnGrY" (@ yourself do nothing)) like the "ne'er-do-well" DO NOTHING Jealous JOWIE (lol) you clearly are?
APK
P.S.=> Evidently you don't & you don't have the SKILLS to create something our /. peers & LIKE + USE now multiplatform (even in an older lesser model soon to be improve in Win64 too) https://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12209260&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=56754750/ that yields more speed/security/reliability for less (bugs/security issues/resource use) vs. any "so-called 'competitor'" (souled out useless OR buggy + inefficient) ... apk
Nothing stops Root from resetting append access only (I do it in the program I noted to Mr. Stoll himself during the File Open (as append, reset etc.)/Read-Write/Flush-Close cycle either really IF you think about it...
Now, I hate getting "radically creative" minus some proof of doing it but a DRIVER LEVEL/KERNELMODE exe could do ANYTHING IT WANTS (even piercing OOP protections) since it can 'see' (even touch) pretty much ANYTHING it wants (why keyboards work so fast for example from 1 driver level exe) & userlevel MAC restrictions don't take there (hell, I did it in the program above where Linux puts restrictions on ping exe that way, but NOT the TCP/IP stack @ API levels (that's still CLEAN, cleaner in RAW than WinSock2 imo in fact)). ... & the paper running out was a good point from you though (so put a MOUNTAIN of it there, right? Right...).
* In any event, it was a GREAT book that my father (of all people, not computergeek, but a Tool & Dye Maker/Designer) gave me to checkout & told me "This'd be up your alley & it's good" (glad he did - he's a very avid & varied reader).
APK
P.S.=> On the note of Root/Admin/SuperUser access - that's WHY the printjob (probably direct pipe changing default output device from console monitor to printer device (all a fax program really is too IF you think about it - just another file abstraction you scribble on)) was so smart imo - & obviously unexpected on the EastGermans & KGB's part (like the student model of an ALTERNATE logging system he had the students write up the year before - "layered-security"/"defense-in-depth", anyone?) - & lastly thank YOU for a civil decent reply (other ones I did here are my "troll do nothings" stalking me as always, lol)... apk
just threaten them with sanctions and copyright laws and they'll return data promptly..