LeftExchange
Pentagon Says It Is Under "Daily Computer Attack"
Thanks to Jim Wolf and Reuters for originally reporting this story:
Unidentified hackers have been trying to break into Defense Department computer networks in a constant push to disrupt U.S. military forces, the Pentagon chief information officer said on Thursday.
(1) If this is so, good for them. The U.S. military needs to scale back its operations. They need to stop interfering in foreign governmental affairs, in the effort to promote U.S. business interests.
(2) If this is not so, the Defense Department is playing a story of faceless, nameless assailants against our country, laying the foundation for any type of action, against anyone--foreign or domestic--at any time. They can always say, "Hey, we've found the bad guys!" Then, they can start shooting.
"DOD is probed on a daily basis by those who are trying, or planning to disrupt our nation's military capabilities,'' acting Assistant Secretary of Defense Linton Wells told a House Armed Services subcommittee.
We have absolutely no way to verify this kind of information. But, we all find it disturbing and frightening. Go get the bad guys! (Sarcasm).
Last year, attackers pierced unclassified Defense Department networks 215 times, up slightly from 1999, but classified systems remained inviolate.
So, what's the worry?
"To my knowledge we have not had any successful intrusions into our classified networks"
How does this guy not know for sure? Can anyone say, CULPABLE DENIABILITY?
Bryan said the culprits, often using encoded hacker tools widely available on the Internet, could be anyone from children to criminals to guerrillas or hostile governments.
Once again, the enemy could be absolutely anyone, anywhere. Maybe you!
"We have to continue to improve (network defenses) because the threat continues to improve,'' he said, referring to the department's more than 2 million computers, 100,000 local-area networks and 100 long-distance networks.
Translation: We are going to spend more taxpayer dollars.
Wells, who is responsible for command, control, communications and intelligence, said the Defense Department was ``greatly accelerating'' the development of technologies to detect and respond to cyber attacks against critical U.S. infrastructure.
The task force, headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, is also developing cyber weapons of its own for possible use in future conflicts. But Bryan told lawmakers he would discuss ''network attack'' at a classified session only.
Ah, yes. What happened to your rights against unlawful search and seizure? Anyone, anywhere who could be classified as a threat can and will be identified and attacked in "near real time" by the U.S. government.
As Edmund Burke said, "All that is needed for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing."
REMEMBER:
Back to the Ranting
Current intrusion detection techniques are ``extremely limited'' in their ability to identify attacks, notably ''distributed denial of service'' blitzes aimed at swamping targeted Web sites with suddenly launched traffic, he said.
This year the Defense Department plans to introduce new ways to identify, analyze and determine the source of such attacks and take protective steps ``in near real-time,'' Wells said. 