Slashdot Mirror
Pentagon's New Next-Gen Weapons Systems Are Laughably Easy To Hack (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: New computerized weapons systems currently under development by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) can be easily hacked, according to a new report published today. The report was put together by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), an agency that provides auditing, evaluation, and investigative services for Congress. The report detailed some of the most eye-catching hacks GAO testers performed during their analysis: "In one case, it took a two-person test team just one hour to gain initial access to a weapon system and one day to gain full control of the system they were testing. Some programs fared better than others. For example, one assessment found that the weapon system satisfactorily prevented unauthorized access by remote users, but not insiders and near-siders. Once they gained initial access, test teams were often able to move throughout a system, escalating their privileges until they had taken full or partial control of a system. In one case, the test team took control of the operators' terminals. They could see, in real-time, what the operators were seeing on their screens and could manipulate the system. They were able to disrupt the system and observe how the operators responded. Another test team reported that they caused a pop-up message to appear on users' terminals instructing them to insert two quarters to continue operating. Multiple test teams reported that they were able to copy, change, or delete system data including one team that downloaded 100 gigabytes, approximately 142 compact discs, of data."
The report claims the DOD documented many of these "mission-critical cyber vulnerabilities," but Pentagon officials who met with GAO testers claimed their systems were secure, and "discounted some test results as unrealistic." GAO said all tests were performed on computerized weapons systems that are still under development. GAO officials highlighted that hackers can't yet take control over current weapons systems and turn them against the U.S. But if these new weapons systems go live, the threat is more than real, GAO said.
The report claims the DOD documented many of these "mission-critical cyber vulnerabilities," but Pentagon officials who met with GAO testers claimed their systems were secure, and "discounted some test results as unrealistic." GAO said all tests were performed on computerized weapons systems that are still under development. GAO officials highlighted that hackers can't yet take control over current weapons systems and turn them against the U.S. But if these new weapons systems go live, the threat is more than real, GAO said.
This smells like the result of MBAs ignoring engineers...
Unless they're using SuperMicro boards. ;)
Ezekiel 23:20
GAO said all tests were performed on computerized weapons systems that are still under development.
You can't add security on as an afterthought. It needs to be a core feature.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
To be fair, managers are more likely to be rewarded for delivering a sufficient product on time than ensuring proper safeguards. A missed deadline will almost surely be noticed and put on them, while slipshod security has roughly a 1 in 10 chance of showing its head during a manager's actual reign. (The marketing people negotiated the contract, not the project manager, and the marketers often under-bid to win.)
They are behaving "rationally" in terms of their OWN risks versus rewards. The managers are following the carrots and sticks which are actually applied to them like donkeys would.
It's kind of like debt and pensions versus politicians: they won't likely be in office anymore if they muck either of those up bad enough for the public to notice, so they give short-term handouts instead, dumping the long term problem onto the future. In the future, you will hear, "I didn't do it, my predecessors did."
Table-ized A.I.
Not archaic enough. I'm gonna need that in number of baskets of scrolls please.
-
Something Something government contractors something something lowest bidder.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Correction re: "they won't likely be in office anymore if...
Corrected version: ...they won't likely be in office down the road. If they muck either of those up bad enough for the public to notice, it will probably be after their reign. Therefore, they give short-term handouts instead, dumping the long term problem onto the future.
Table-ized A.I.
"100 gigabytes, approximately 142 compact discs, of data."
Probably the same type of people that call the internet AOL.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Not that they shouldn't do better, but, say, if someone can only hack a Phalanx system from inside the aircraft carrier from a secure access terminal then it is probably not going to end up exploited, since if you can get a mole in that deep they can probably do more damage throwing a wrench into the right place.
Blind faith in systems and strategy, just because you are heavily invested in it, will not necessarily save you
No, no, fuck you, and no.
This is a horribly bad approach to security. You're making assumptions about the external environment, and using them to excuse system vulnerabilities. That's not realistic or intelligent. It's just lazy.
Lets not forget the anti hacking. A bullet in the head of the traitor.
That's assuming you can find a traitor. If the system logs aren't secure, or if their integrity is questionable, or if they don't uniquely identify an individual, you have no hope of identifying exactly who attacked the system.
Systems in development are not complete
So? Security isn't something to be bolted-on late in the development process. Systems should be secured first, then the functionality is applied on top of that. If that means you have to use more-costly (but more secure) solutions in your design, so be it. When functionality comes before security, management is far too justified in saying "but we've spent too much already developing this insecure system!" and refuse to reimplement it securely.
For a related example in the public sector, we're almost done implementing HTTPS, after only 10 years or so...
Systems are in very high security locations, especially when deployed
At first, maybe... then a truck gets ambushed, or a base is overrun, or we get an impulsive politician who promises an arbitrary date to get out of an unpopular conflict area. Then those systems fall into enemy hands, and you just have to hope that it's a useless pile of hardware by then.
Systems are surrounded by many soldiers
Soldiers are underpaid, overworked, and usually focused on things other than countering highly-technical intelligence techniques. If an attacker walks onto a base, steals classified data (or even whole systems), and tries to leave, they'll be saluted at the gate as long as their paperwork looks right.
There is no valid excuse for leaving a system insecure by design. Every layer of the system should be built securely, with the functionality added afterward.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Most of the responsibility of this falls on the Pentagon. The government insists on tightly controlling all the requirements, and so in an environment where cost is king, if the customer doesn't properly write in cyber as a requirement, there isn't any incentive by the contractors to go beyond what is written. That is what the GAO report is primarily criticizing: that the DoD did not take cyber seriously until recently and that they are still trying to figure out how to architect a secure environment and write requirements for it. So even if a contractor says, "Hey, government Contracting Officer, you should tighten security around this system," the government Contracting Officer, if they understand even what's going on, will probably say, "I dunno, does that change the requirements? We're not going to pay you for it."
If an attacker walks onto a base, steals classified data (or even whole systems), and tries to leave, they'll be saluted at the gate as long as their paperwork looks right.
This!, even a moderate physical secure systems need to be secured. Everyone assumes everyone else is doing what they are suppose to, and question only when they are suppose to, and wouldn't know otherwise.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
Friend of mine was part of a team that did a security assessment on an automatic 5in gun used for naval purposes. It was pretty much a tour de force of how not to do it, everything connected and enabled by default, little to no security/encryption, ancient insecure libraries, terrible coding practices, you name it, it was there. Apart from the direct security implications that anyone who gets access to the ship network, e.g. while berthed, has full control of an automatic 5in gun turret, it said really bad things about the rest of the software controlling the thing. They were limited in scope with what they were allowed to do, but said it responded in very unexpected ways to garbled control messages sent to it. In other words just normal, non-malicious operation in the presence of errors would cause it to do God knows what. Their recommendation was to disable as much computer-controlled automation on it as possible and run things under human control.