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."
They still don't like us? (Score:4, Insightful)
And here I was, thinking that the Presidential Apology Tour would make it all better.
On a serious note, by moving our high tech industry offshore we have helped to make it happen. Now, with a broken economy, we appear weak, and we invite ridicule and attack. Clever bandaids added to firewalls will make little difference long term. We need to regain strength and respect. This is not just a technical problem. Our recent administrations (Republicrats and Demopublican alike) through suicidal short-sighted policies aimed only to benefit a few fat cats have made us an easy target. Such is the fate of a fallen giant. Everyone wants to kick him. After all, what are we going to do about it?
Not surprised (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A New Approach: Bait and Strike (Score:3, Insightful)
You're assuming that the software controlling nuclear warheads is exposed to the network. The US certainly isn't stupid enough to do that, and I doubt China is either.
Re:define "attack" (Score:3, Insightful)
Big numbers are more convincing and sounds better.
Re:Garbage (Score:3, Insightful)
Troll? Who the F modded me as troll? From the FAQ:
At a guess, someone who couldn't find the self righteous twat moderation. So troll it is.
Re:chicken feed (Score:3, Insightful)
That's a lot of money... That's almost 8 full hours of what is being spent on Iraq.
Yes but they don't get any oil out of this.
The phrase 'fend off' network attacks is moronic. You don't 'fend off' cyber attacks you set things up right the first time around. They should be setting things up right before they get attacked not as some afterthought.
Of course if they run windows on any networked machine they will always have some risk.
Re:They still don't like us? (Score:4, Insightful)
hardening systems thru more secure software (abandon Windows -- whether you like it or not, it's the best target due to being used by everyone).
Not quite. Windows is the best target due to its low coding standards, the huge number of security holes it suffers from, and it's unmanageably.
The fact it is used heavily doesn't make it any more or less secure.
Re:define "attack" (Score:5, Insightful)
I have linux boxes all over the place and there are literally thousands of ssh/sft/etc attempts on each box each day. None of them are successful though.
Can I claim that my boxes have more attacks than the US Military?
If the US government would give you a 100 dollars to investigate each attack you might be tempted to.
What does this tell me? Nothing! (Score:3, Insightful)
Does this really tell me anything? Not really? What kind of "cyber attacks" are that? SSH break-in attempts? Bots looking for known holes? Script kiddies? Mail relay attempts? Or targeted attempts specifically designed to get access to their system? If I go for the script kiddie/SSH category I get around 25.000 attempts a year on one server alone, according to ossec.
This could also just mean that the number of attacks has risen generally and not specifically against the DoD.
So many unanswered questions ...
Re:Garbage (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Garbage (Score:1, Insightful)
Who knows, maybe you are the one spreading propaganda. Someone could have faked the evidence of this "50 cent gang" in order to make China look bad. Basically both sides have the motivation to do this sort of thing and it can be hard to figure out who is who sometimes.
I would be surprised if China doesn't do this. Corporations and politicians and other organisations in the West do it all the time. I doubt that the Chinese are less adept at propaganda than westerners. Whether this particular "50 cent gang" exists wouldn't make much difference.