Hacker forces 1,500 Pentagon computers offline
PENTAGON - The Defense Department took as many as 1,500 computers off line because of a cyber attack, Pentagon officials said Thursday.
Few details were released about the attack, which happened Wednesday, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the computer systems would be working again soon.
Gates said the Pentagon sees hundreds of attacks a day, and this one had no adverse impact on department operations. Employees whose computers were affected could still use their handheld BlackBerries.
Hmm, next thing we'll hear that a cyberattack was responsible for all those missing WH e-mails.
Gates admits that he himself belongs to the Bush school of thought on e-mail:
When asked if his own e-mail account was affected, Gates said: "I don’t do e-mail. I’m a very low-tech person.""
An Australian News Site also reports:
HACKERS have succeeded in penetrating computer systems of the Department of Homeland Security in hundreds of attacks on the lead US cybersecurity agency, a congressional panel has disclosed.
A lawmaker said at a hearing that documents provided to his subcommittee showed DHS suffered 844 cybersecurity "incidents" in fiscal 2005 and 2006, including some resulting in infection with viruses or other malicious code.
"It was a shock and a disappointment to learn that the Department of Homeland Security - the agency charged with being the lead in our national cybersecurity - has suffered so many significant security problems on its networks," Representative James Langevin told the hearing of the Committee on Homeland Security.
The incidents including unauthorised access to DHS computers, misconfiguration of firewalls, the compromising of a website, infection with Trojans and viruses and classified data "spillages," Mr Langevin said.
"What does this mean? It means terrorists or nation states could be hacking Department of Homeland Security databases, changing or altering names to allow them access to this country, and we wouldn't even know they were doing it," he said.
US Homeland Security admits hacks
Of course the latter is not a recent event but the findings of the congressional panel were released yesterday.