Cyber Attacks On US Military Jump Sharply In 2009 76
angry tapir writes "Cyber attacks on the US Department of Defense — many of them coming from China — have jumped sharply in 2009, a US congressional committee has reported. Citing data provided by the US Strategic Command, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said that there were 43,785 malicious cyber incidents targeting Defense systems in the first half of the year. That's a big jump. In all of 2008, there were 54,640 such incidents. If cyber attacks maintain this pace, the yearly increase will be around 60 percent. The full report (PDF) is available online."
chicken feed (Score:2, Informative)
That's a lot of money... That's almost 8 full hours of what is being spent on Iraq.
Garbage (Score:4, Informative)
The PRC is also recruiting from its growing population of technically skilled people, including those from the private sector, to increase its cyber capabilities. It is recruiting skilled cyber operators from information technology firms and computer science programs into the ranks of numerous Information Warfare Militia units.
"cyber operators".. "Information Warfare Militia".. What?
Try actually reading the linked PDF and see if you can take it seriously. All this stuff about increased "cyber attack incidences" and I can find absolutely nothing explicitly linking any incident with the Chinese government or anything even making explicit what a "cyber attack incident" is. (Also "cyber warfare" is a pretty small part of the report itself; the report isn't about "cyber-warfare", but US-China relations.)
cyber-space (the electro-magnetic spectrum)
I think that quote just about sums it up. I am stunned that people here on slashdot are taking this seriously, this is the sort of thing I'd expect to see on Fox News.
Re:Garbage (Score:3, Informative)
If you're not convinced and think this must be some sort of Fox News conspiracy (ooo, a different point of view, ignore it!) I provide a link to that paragon of correctness the BBC [bbc.co.uk] to explain it in simple terms that you can understand.
Please note that these are not actually pro-China commenters, but merely anti-anti-China commenters. Indeed I don't see anything pro-China in your post. You've even Americanized it by attempting to tie it to Fox News, something that Americans will understand on a cultural level, rather than something baffling like attempting to tie it to those perfidious seperatists in Tibet or Xinjiang.
Information warfare militia in China do exist. It's like this: young men like to hack. They also like to belong to something larger than themselves, and China is pretty darn big. The USA is China's Main Enemy and is a natural target for any attack. They go looking for the biggest target they can find, and sometimes they get something worthwhile. Someone's dad is a major in the PLA, and they hand the documents off to him, and later a quiet "attaboy" comes down the channel with a request to send anything else they might find during their travels. They're basically like any irregular force - mainly useful in keeping the enemy busy with dealing with low-level annoyances, or occupying territory. There were American citizens who tried to hack the Iraqi defense system during the 1991 war (hi Par!) even though that was the last thing on Schwartzkopf's mind. They mostly failed due to the lack of computers in Iraq or anything worthwhile to hack.
If you're not in the 50-cent gang, I apologize for calling you out. Although, it sure sucks when you're on the same side of the argument with totalitarian thugs. At least they're getting paid, they're doing it as a job. What are you getting out of it?
RX35 Switch (Score:1, Informative)
A few years ago I was stationed on a large warship.
Now, you might expect IT security on the shipwide control system to be pretty tight, and indeed the firewalls to prevent external attacks are very secure (you don't really want some geek with a wireless laptop hacking in and controlling the ship lol), but if someone can actually get onto the ship, there are network ports all over which they can plug into and gain access to the whole control path.
One time when the ship pulled in a small vessel which was suspected of smuggling, the shit-for-brains marines failed to search it properly and a handful of ne'erdowells then sneaked aboard, plugged into the network, and proceded to arse around inside it. As well as mucking about with the data on the brig, thay also managed to blow a fuse on the waste control circuits, which meant I had to take a trip out all the way to home base to get a replacement RX35 switch from central stores.
As it turns out this was quite a lucky break, because while I was away this same bunch of chancers blew the whole ship up by firing some proton torpedos down the main reactor exhaust pipe.
Phew!
[Stolen from Here [b3ta.com]]
Re:Garbage (Score:3, Informative)