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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?
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.
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.
This isnt new and hasnt been stopped regardless of who POTUS may be. The US just takes the hit without ever retaliating.
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
Your Trump ButtHurt is so bad, you'll need an ass transplant in 2024
just line up and pay $1bln you will go back to doing business as usual
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."
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
I agree, it should be required reading, or part of Sysadmin Employee Handbook.
You can make append only files, FWIW, which could be useful for logging in this way. Nothing stopping someone who gains root from rebuilding the FS though, just gives them another task and need to reboot the system. Printers run out of paper eventually.
Was a very awesome book, I should read it again.
Why UNIX?
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...
Same goes for diverting where the print goes. Difference is though, if both are attacked, you have some chance of grepping the logs, grepping print output takes a much longer as eyeballs don't work as fast. This assumes you can do something with it afterwards. On a laser, I'm not sure, but if you close the print fd file, I think it ejects the page. On line printers, this isn't as much an issue. If there is a large (page) buffer, then I think there's some chance that the lpd could be -9'd thus nothing gets written. Obvious when the admin gets in, but was damage done in the meanwhile? To be honest, I'm more bothered about dormant intrusions, those that are immediately obvious are less of a problem as you can deal with those.
My hints were towards https://man.openbsd.org/OpenBS...
I'd have more confidence in that than other methods. Granted you have to reboot to rotate, but it seems a fairly good compromise and has a lower carbon foot print than the paper method. There may also be times when the log buffer fills waiting for the printer to warm up and some connections may time out, though I've never checked this, would be mighty annoying if you cannot ssh to quiet machine because the log write hasn't returned.
Why UNIX?