Slashdot Log In
Obama Helicopter Security Breached By File Sharing
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Mar 01, 2009 09:14 AM
from the we're-getting-lazy-without-a-cold-war dept.
from the we're-getting-lazy-without-a-cold-war dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "A company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks has discovered a potentially serious security breach involving President Barack Obama's helicopter. 'We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One, which is the president's helicopter,' says Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, a security company that specializes in peer-to-peer technology. Tiversa was able to track the file, discovered at an IP address in Tehran, Iran, back to its original source. 'What appears to be a defense contractor in Bethesda, Md., had a file-sharing program on one of their systems that also contained highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One,' says Boback, adding that someone from the company most likely downloaded a file-sharing program, typically used to exchange music, without realizing the potential problems. 'I'm sure that person is embarrassed and may even lose their job, but we know where it came from and we know where it went.' Iran is not the only country that appears to be accessing this type of information through file-sharing programs. 'We've noticed it out of Pakistan, Yemen, Qatar and China. They are actively searching for information that is disclosed in this fashion because it is a great source of intelligence.'"
Related Stories
[+]
LimeWire Brings Darknets To All 126 comments
An anonymous reader writes "LimeWire's new version lets people create private darknets with contacts on any Jabber server (like GMail or LiveJournal). It's different than the recent p2p darknet announcement because it doesn't use onion routing. Sharing with a friend connects directly to that friend. If you're worried about exposing personal information, LW5 doesn't share documents with the p2p network by default."
[+]
Proposed Peer-To-Peer Law Sparks Animosity 168 comments
coondoggie writes "The Federal Trade Commission and Distributed Computing Industry Association locked horns over a proposed law that would govern how peer-to-peer networking technology would be used and regulated. Before the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, the Federal Trade Commission expressed its doubts about companies protecting sensitive consumer information (PDF) or sensitive data over P2P internet file-sharing networks. It doesn't help the P2P cause that the technology continues to pop up in bad practices. Recently a company that monitors peer-to-peer networks said it found classified information about the systems used onboard the president's helicopter in a shared folder on a computer in Iran, after a file containing the data was accidentally leaked on a peer-to-peer network last summer. Meanwhile the DCIA said any laws would likely be ineffective and stifle the business opportunities P2P can generate."
An article on CNet points out that the wording of the bill would make it apply to just about everything related to communications on the internet.
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
So where's the torrent?
This person is screwed, and should be. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell....lose his/her job?
If they're lucky that will be all they lose. When you're doing DoD work for the Feds....you sign some pretty heavy forms about your responsibilities and the ramifications if you break them....accident or not.
If this asshole did this with what I would have to guess was secure information....putting these plans on a non-secure computer, that alone can get you some heavy legal problems, and possibly jail time.
Parent
Re:This person is screwed, and should be. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have to agree with this. What happened to established security protocol?
Its sounds like, if anything, someone transfered the data to a non-secure machine.
What sounds a LOT more plausible is that this is all an attempt to further demonize P2P. And, I say this with my tinfoil hat still on the hat rack.
The source alone brought up green nasties for me. MSNBC?
Parent
Re:Insecure systems (Score:5, Informative)
You apparently have no clue how DOD classified networks work such as SIPRnet [wikipedia.org] or JWICs [wikipedia.org]. Anything classified has no connection to the unclassified internet. The SIPRnet and JWICS system passes though a KG-175 [jproc.ca], which in turns encrypts the traffic, to go though the normal network. If for example a windows SIPRnet, or JWICs system gets comprised with spyware. The only one who could touch these systems is people on the SIPRnet or JWICS. Just because the machine is comprised doesn't make the computer decide to send unencrypted data or open holes in the network, since any traffic leaving the network has to go though the KG-175. Now if some idiot user decides to connect a classified system to network, that's a much bigger issue that they call data spillage.
Any computer not classified is essentially on the NIPRnet (or unclassified network) for example, but the only data that is allowed on it is up to sensitive information such as SSNs, random forms, and TPS reports. Even flight schedules are not supposed to be NIPRnet.
Parent
Re:OH ..Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Who Cares ????...... i don't...
If the Rebels have obtained a complete technical readout of this helicopter it is possible, however unlikely, that they might find a weakness, and exploit it.
Does the helicopter have a long trench leading up to a ventilation shaft?
Parent
Re:OH ..Well... (Score:4, Funny)
And now you will witness the power of this fully operational helicopter!
Parent
Re:OH ..Well... (Score:4, Informative)
It's a custom helicopter (just like air force 1 is a custom plane). You could for example get some sort of unique radar response from the plane, telling you the location of the helicopter, or worse, giving you something to program a sidewinder with.
Same goes for air force 1. If you had the specs of it's fof tranceiver you could wait until it's crossing the atlantic, then launch a rocket towards it which they have no chance to evade.
Basically it would reduce the problem of killing the president of the USA from successfully attacking a wide range of security forces, just to make sure you cover all angles, to the problem of making 1 tiny pinpoint strike. With the blueprints or a location indicator you'd could execute a pinpoint strike that would take involve almost no risk for the perpetrators and would sure as hell kill the prsident.
Parent
Re:OH ..Well... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem you really seem to have is that somehow you believe you whole country comes to a stop when a president dies. They are just another elected official, they whole idea of commander in chief is crazy. The whole power base should be distributed with clear areas of responsibility and liability, less focus on the president and much more focus on all the other positions, positions which in reality should be by individuals who have been elected to a position of trust by the people.
The whole idea of random political appointments with only limited oversight is not really all that healthy and is readily abuses. At the very least all major positions within the administration should be filled by sitting members from the house of representatives, you are already paying them enough, why employ additional political hanger ons.
All decisions by the administration should be subject to to continual review by the supposedly 'representative' houses and in reality should reflect the views of many people rather than just one. You are no electing a King or Queen and in many countries the 'president' is just a figure head whose power is basically limited to ensuring that the rest of governments sticks to the legislated rules.
So lose a president should basically be just a 'whoops', replace them with another and the system keeps ticking along fine, where one person can have such a profound influence over everybody else's lives even for just eight years is really wrong and people will suffer for it, as the recent past has clearly demonstrated.
Parent
Cue the Hysteria... (Score:4, Insightful)
Gee. That's a nice balanced summary, ahead of the histrionic response of "OMG file sharers are breaching national security!"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
My question is more like, who the hell is still using that sort of old-an-busted P2P software (bearshare, kazaa, etc) that does autosharing of folder contents like that? And really, someone with blueprints and such for marine one?
Someone tell that guy/gal it's 2009.
Re:Cue the Hysteria... (Score:4, Insightful)
1. the idiot who thought it was OK to install a file sharing program on a work computer
2. the idiot who installed said program, AND had the folder/directory containing the sensitive files shared out.
3. the idiot admins who allowed him to install said program
4. the idiot admins who allowed that traffic over the network
5. the idiot admins who allowed those ports open
6. people who think that 'anything but Windows' is automatically secure.
On any other OS, this idiot would have done exactly the same thing, simply because he is an idiot.
Parent
Re:Cue the Hysteria... (Score:5, Insightful)
.. but most importantly:
1. the idiots that believed the story. :rolleyes:
Parent
Re:Cue the Hysteria... (Score:5, Insightful)
And people still die in Volvos. Yes, it may be harder to do so, but the uberidiot will always find a way.
The poster implied that that using something other than Windows would have been better. I posit that this particular user would have screwed the pooch no matter what OS they were on. This was not a built-in vulnerability of Windows (of which there are many). This was a built-in vulnerability of being an idiot user.
Parent
Re:Cue the Hysteria... (Score:5, Informative)
* we've always been at war with Eastasia, right?
Parent
Re:Cue the Hysteria... (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know how long ago you were in military intelligence, but these days people leave their agency and then come back on Monday as a contractor with Booz Allen Hamilton or SAIC. If you haven't already, read Spies for Hire by Tim Shorrock.
Parent
Re:Cue the Hysteria... (Score:5, Insightful)
From the article:
"Clark told WPXI that he doesn't know how sensitive this information is, but he said other military information has been found on the Internet in the past and should be monitored more closely."
Nothing in the article said the information was classified, so it looks to me like it's kind of a "mountain out of a molehill" kind of thing - there's plenty of information about military hardware out there that looks scary to someone that doesn't know anything about the subject matter, but is strategically/tactically useless just the same. Similar information regarding the VC-25 fleet has been out there for some time, and I don't trust a reporter or employee of a peer-to-peer company to be able to evaluate whether something contains full documentation of "entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One".
I worked for several years for a Navy contractor in their submarine combat systems department. Anything, *anything* that was classified was A.) kept in an area with physical access controls (often including unfriendly guys with guns), B.) if available electronically, was on a separate network physically inaccessible from outside that controlled area, and C.) if anything had to go outside that controlled area (software updates for the boats, for instance), there was a two-man protocol to be followed, with one of our guys and one of the Navy guys in custody 24x7 of whatever media had classified data on it. Even assuming the article is correct and there was truly useful information made available, the problem isn't that file-sharing is bad, or that Windows is insecure - the problem is that both the contractor and the agency they serve had lapses in their security protocol that would let such information anywhere near a non-secured network, and the appropriate security audits weren't taking place.
Parent
Re:Cue the Hysteria... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think there's anything unfair about the summary. P2P applications are a security risk, and I know I don't allow my users to install them on their work computers.
Let me put it this way: Any time you're setting a computer up to be a server on the Internet, it's always a security risk. There are risks associated with bugs and things like that, but also (and perhaps more importantly) there are risks associated with misconfiguration. This is very relevant for P2P applications, which might come configured by default to share files that you don't want to share.
So yes, if people with high security clearances are installing Kazaa on their work computers and sharing out all their documents, then "OMG file sharers are breaching national security!"
Parent
Re:Cue the Hysteria... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's even more profit in REPLACING the now 'breached' current presidential helicopter fleet over these blueprints.
Don't even think that this has primary IT implications.
This is more about giving the polititians cover to continue the cost overruns.
Marine One Upgrade Plan Stirs Debate [kdka.com]
A helicopter (one) that costs as much as (one) Boeing 747!
Wow...
Parent
It's official... (Score:5, Funny)
Tiversa was able to track the file, discovered at an IP address in Tehran, Iran, back to its original source.
.
.
'We've noticed it out of Pakistan, Yemen, Qatar and China. They are actively searching for information that is disclosed in this fashion because it is a great source of intelligence.'
If you use p2p file sharing software to steal music and TV shows - terrorists win.
Re:It's official... (Score:4, Insightful)
Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens
Wohl so, aber warum denn haben die Goetter die Dummheit gemacht?
It is a serious question why God made stupidity if he himself has to contend with it.
Parent
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Why is this tagged "Windows"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that stupid/careless employees can leak sensitive information through P2P on any OS. I'm not aware that any of the OSX/nix installs search any less widely for shared folders than the Windows versions.
Stupidity is definitely OS-independent.
"windows" article tag biased (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of these P2P apps share your entire home or your entire computer by default when you first install them, it's up to you to go in and shut that stuff off, or at least define a specific folder to share from rather than the default.
Tagging this with "windows" isn't fair - it can affect any other system equally, this isn't a software problem, it's a user or developer issue. For example, I've worked on numerous macs with Limewire installed on them that are sharing all the user's music automatically by default.
Re:"windows" article tag biased (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:"windows" article tag biased (Score:4, Interesting)
I have never known a p2p app to run as "nobody" on linux. I'm quite the linux advocate, but this is just plain misleading. It is possible to deliberately setup a separate account to run your p2p apps, but none of the major distros do this for you automatically.
On the other hand, it should be fairly trivial to configure some default selinux or apparmor policies that restrict things like p2p apps and prevent them from accessing your documents without explicit permission. Again, though, I don't know of any distro that does this.
Parent
Topical BS (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it just me, or does this whole thing seem a bit too topical? I can see this meeting taking place at the Tiversa head office.
CEO - "We need to drum up business! What's a good angle to increase our visibility?"
Marketing Droid One - "Evil powers are undermining our National Security© is tried and true, Sir."
Marketing Droid Two - "It's consistently scored highly in all of our focus groups."
CEO - "That was with the last administration! We an angle for today people!" (makes slicing hand gesture)
Up and Coming Sycophant - "I know! The helicopter! We can say that someone stole the plans to the President's helicopter!"
CEO - "That might just work. Tie that in to the usual National Security line and send out a press release!"
Another Internet FUD post in quick succession (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow. BitTorrent is really freaking the control freaks out isn't it? I guess the Pirate Bay trial must be going worse than they thought....
Outside connected machines (Score:5, Insightful)
Should be *banned* for security areas. If you need 'outside' for a valid reason you provide a dedicated machine for that purpose.
Its pretty simple. That company should be fired, not just the fool that caused the leak.
And i don't care what OS it runs, anything less then the above is plain reckless.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Outside connected machines (Score:4, Insightful)
Should be *banned* for security areas. If you need 'outside' for a valid reason you provide a dedicated machine for that purpose.
Its pretty simple. That company should be fired, not just the fool that caused the leak.
And i don't care what OS it runs, anything less then the above is plain reckless.
THey undoubtedly already do the above. I would lay money that this guy "brought work home" on a USB flash drive and put it on his home computer. I do something similar at work. I have 2 machines side by side, one with network access, one isolated with all my development tools on it. I transfer the applications I write to the "live" side with a flash drive. In my case it doesn't matter, because there's nothing sensitive on our network (our IT dept is just full of dickheads who lock down all the networked machines). In this contractor's case, the employee will probably lose his clearance and be canned. DoD security regulations are there for exactly this reason.
Parent
The solution.. (Score:5, Interesting)
None of these ideas are foolproof, someone dumb enough would eventually screw up anyway. But that is not the point, the point is that there are simple engineering steps that can be taken to reduce the amount of inadvertantly shared data.
This is why (Score:5, Insightful)
... and this is why you have draconian policies in many companies about installing ANY unapproved software. I've seen people complain about "just let me do my job" and install anything they want, but the fact of the matter is that it only takes one dumb-ass like this to wreak major havoc.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, businesses exist to make money. Too far in the restrictive direction, and the employees will become unproductive and leave. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I suppose.
It's all about balance - se
Yep (Score:3, Insightful)
Also I've discovered that quite often, the reason people want the ability to install software is precisely because they want shit they know they shouldn't have at work.
I work for a university, so there isn't a hard and fast rule on admin for users. We'd like that nobody has it, because there's less problems, but due to various reasons including academic freedom and research groups owning their own systems, we have to allow it when professors request it.
Now you might assume that the reason a grad student wou
Epic career limiting move (Score:3, Funny)
So whats the high/low on this person having a GitMo vacation??
Deliberate. (Score:4, Interesting)
Funny how this should happen so recently after Obama and McCain publically agreed that the plan to replace the aging Marine One fleet should be cancelled...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/24/us/politics/24chopper.html [nytimes.com]
Re:Deliberate. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's more. The new Marine One fleet was to be built not by Sikorsky, as has always been the case, but by an Italian manufacturer Finmeccanica. Apparently the bidding and selection process itself was suspect, and pilots objected. This may also be why Obama wants the project reviewed. The article below posits a particular theory about the apparently crooked deal with Finmeccanica, which may or may not be correct, but the facts remain regardless of their interpretation:
http://www.alternet.org/audits/127832/ [alternet.org]
Parent
planted fakes? (Score:3, Insightful)
If I worked for US counterintelligence you can bet I would develop and plant fake leaks that sound just like this sort of thing. Then again, I may be giving too much credit. Occam's Razor prevails.
highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One (Score:4, Funny)
Nothing to worry about. (Score:4, Funny)
Don't worry, I am sure the Iranian ISP has a three strikes policy and terrorists will be soon cut off the internet.
What security depends on a helicopters blueprints? (Score:5, Insightful)
What sort of security depends on the secrecy of a helicopter's blueprints? Honestly.
Re:What security depends on a helicopters blueprin (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty much any kind of security. Keeping the blueprints secret means keeping the capabilities (range, speed, altitude) secret as well as keeping the nature of any active or passive defenses secret.
Now I know the Slashdot hivemind will respond with their usual rote mantra - "but security through obscurity is bad"... But on this, they are completely wrong. (Mostly because their notions of security consist of repeating what they've read by various talking heads.) Security through obscurity, as one layer of an overall security plan, is extremely valuable because the black hats cannot prepare in advance to meet a countermeasure which they are unaware of.
Parent
nothing really new here... (Score:4, Interesting)
Amazing... (Score:4, Funny)
You guys are slipping...
Re:takes 2 to tango (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope. Everyone is assuming this is a torrent because it is the most popular form of file sharing. Many of the old school peer to peer file sharing apps *by default* shared your documents folder. You could turn it off, but most people don't.
Many confidential files have been leaked this way. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Citigroup-Customer-Data-Leaked-on-LimeWire/
There used to even be guides to tell you what were common digital camera prefixes so you could do a search for CIM*.jpg or DSC*.jpg and browse people's private folders.
If you were a company or nation involved in espionage, getting on a p2p network and searching for files with obvious names would be a good place to start.
http://bizsecurity.about.com/b/2008/07/08/limewire-and-working-at-home.htm
It isn't just limewire of course, that's just the first one I could remember from years ago. There's also eMule and many others.
In addition to firing the person responsible, the entire IT staff should be reviewed if not fired. My guess though is that this is some ceo who specifically told IT that he was exempt from the security rules. C*Os are the biggest security risk because they tell people that the security rules don't apply to them. Remember that cdw? commercial about the boss who infects an entire office because he let's his kid use the company network?
Parent
Re:takes 2 to tango (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, data like this shouldn't even be on a computer with a physical link to the internet at all. Classified data should stay on classified networks. Period.
I know a guy at a defense contractor. They isolate their networks containing classified data. If they need to remove a file from the room they reimage a desktop with a known safe image, copy the file onto that PC from a CD burned from a classified PC. They then scrub the files with software that does stuff like wipe unallocated space, check for word versions, PDF comments, etc. Then that desktop is used to burn a new CD with just the intended files. Then they securely wipe the desktop. That one CD that was created in this fashion is then allowed to leave the room. Note that this is the gist of how it works - some details may be less than accurate (obviously I'm not privy to the exact procedures, but this is the general level of rigor involved).
Even if somebody installed Kazaa or its like on one of the computers in that room it wouldn't be able to leak data - there are no network connections that are attached to the internet. If somebody needs to check email or browse the web they leave the room (carrying nothing with them) and go to another desk in a regular office area, which has a fairly secure network but something more akin to what you'd find in any decently secured corporate network. Of course, installing kazaa in the first place would be difficult since you're not supposed to carry anything into or out of the classified areas - I don't know if they get searched at the door but you would certainly be fired and potentially prosecuted if you were caught doing it intentionally.
Important datacenters like those found in stock exchanges / etc are similar. The datacenter is secured, network access is very carefully controlled, and to do anything important you need to have physical access to a room with cameras pointed everywhere and every task involves two people at the keyboard at all times.
There is no excuse for these kinds of breaches. Strong security isn't actually hard. It is certainly expensive, and it is certainly inconvenient. However, it really isn't hard - you just need to be methodical.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
employee?? The company should be toast.
Re:President gets a new Marine One (Score:5, Informative)
Really though, it's probably just unrelated coincidence. Most things like this are completely unplanned. Conspiracies require competence, and you just don't find that in government much.
Parent
Re:I want properly configured SELinux (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like every program I run to be in a sandbox. For example, not having access to a single file without my permission.
It's pretty trivial to attempt this sort of thing with either Windows or any UNIXish OS. If you do, it shouldn't take long to figure out why it's completely impractical.
Parent