Pentagon Hid Magnitude of Data Loss From Recent Breach 218
blueton tips us to a brief story about recent revelations from the Pentagon which indicate that the attack on their computer network in June 2007 was more serious than they originally claimed. A DoD official recently remarked that the hackers were able to obtain an "amazing amount" of data. We previously discussed rumors that the Chinese People's Liberation Army was behind the attack. CNN has an article about Chinese hackers who claim to have successfully stolen information from the Pentagon. Quoting Ars Technica:
"The intrusion was first detected during an IT restructuring that was underway at the time. By the time it was detected, malicious code had been in the system for at least two months, and was propagating via a known Windows exploit. The bug spread itself by e-mailing malicious payloads from one system on the network to another."
Windows strikes again. (Score:5, Informative)
The DoD doesn't need Windows, we need bunkers.
Re:Windows strikes again. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's also apparently to the point that the US government ought to consider dropping Windows entirely.
That, or maybe we should all just set our login names to Bejing and the password to China. Just let them have the run of anything we have of value.
Running Windows just slows them down a little. A very little.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Besides, everyone knows that folks at the Pentagon uses Windows computers to play minesweeper.
Re:Windows strikes again. (Score:5, Interesting)
2) Decent firewall alerting you to connections to chinese IP space,
Duhh.. these guys weren't amateurs. They wouldn't have been communicating directly with the compromised hosts. There'd be like three or more hops of compromised boxes between them and the Pentagon. Not to mention that the intrusion might have originally been thanks to a viral botnet where the controllers recognized some interesting IPs within their herd. Then used the command-control structure to issue specific commands to those boxes to further infiltrate the Pentagon. Probably was always outbound connections uploading data and grabbing new marching orders (encrypted in both cases).
Seth
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Why would you? I doubt they'd be out selling access to their network to spammers. We're talking about military espionage here after all.
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When did these things start coming with Windows? Not even server editions of Windows come with that stuff. However, I can think of a competing OS that does ship with these wonderful things.
Sure thing. I'm not going to say heads shouldn't have already rolled over there at the DOD IT Department Department. Heck, even the idiotic users s
Re:Windows strikes again. (Score:4, Funny)
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With the firewall exception Windows does some with the IDS you are referring to. Network monitoring is deeply ingrained and has no trouble reporting to a syslog server. The problem is the effort it takes to setup a proper IDS so that it doesn't overwhelm you with false-positives which is really the same with any IDS package. Microsoft likes the basic approach that comes with Windows and then the advanced approach they get through their Operations Manager software. Of course now it's being rolled and merged
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Broken management (Score:4, Insightful)
Their network admins should be fired on the spot, that's ridiculous.
Yes it is ridiculous and someone should be fired.
But why does everyone go after the grunts and not the department heads? After all it is the department heads to allocate the money and resources to do such things as watch the network.
The local admin might be over worked, under trained, understaffed and no hardware to accomplish this task. Don't be so quick to pounce on the network person. This is a management issue pure an simple.
DoD Security knows all, does all, is all BullShit (Score:3, Insightful)
DoD has bought into Alpha-security (A-Sec). A-Sec is when all things are controlled by being identical or bunker-consolidated.
It is like a single point of failure looking for a place to happen. Someone once told me (or I read) about the blackberry network with one or two critical nodes (points of failure/attack/access). MS-products on most all DoD desktops is another single node. Server/Network help-desk-script Admin is another node. Things done the same way
Re:DoD Security knows all, does all, is all BullSh (Score:3, Informative)
It really does make what the NSA were doing look very suspicious and s
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~Jarik
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Now that I think about it this may not just be an analogy.
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Thumbin on the tubes, waitin for a truck... full of email.
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You mean like this one
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Re:Windows strikes again. (Score:5, Interesting)
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I have a hunch that it's simply because the good people aren't willing to work for what the Pentagon is willing to pay. Public sector jobs are very seldom as lucrative as what can be found at the right places in t
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Oh, damnit, there you go again, interjecting facts into this. You don't understand. This is slashdot. We don't need facts! We need sensationalism and sheer, unadulterated panic. That's why it's called "News for Nerds". The news gives us panicky, psychotic bullshit. Slashdot also gives us panicky, psychotic bullshit, but panicky, psychotic bullshit for nerds. Also, it's duped as often as you see stories
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Oh, damnit, there you go again, interjecting facts into this. You don't understand. This is slashdot. We don't need facts! We need sensationalism and sheer, unadulterated panic. That's why it's called "News for Nerds". The news gives us panicky, psychotic bullshit. Slashdot also gives us panicky, psychotic bullshit, but panicky, psychotic bullshit for nerds. Also, it's duped as often as you see stories duped on CNN Headline News.
How sad. What you say may be true, the slashdot community may be made up of snarky thrill seeking no-lifers with a taste for sensational bulshit. But that is totally separate from the simple fact that the Rules may dictate that classified data has no access to the internet, but users are notorious for ignoring and being ignorant of the rules. Remember the stolen laptops with classified military personnel records on them that were recovered in 2006? The ones with active email clients on them? That woul
Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Funny)
Is this supposed to be some sort of scandal? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is it with you people? Is there no such thing as a state secret anymore? Should the Pentagon just list all its secrets on its Web site and get it over with? Let's just post all the targeting information, launch codes, encryption keys, advanced weapons and defense systems. etc. Let's just post it all on .mil in the interest of openness.
Not everything is a scandal folks! Nothing to see here, move along.
Re:Is this supposed to be some sort of scandal? (Score:4, Funny)
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Well, the Air Force did send that stuff to mildenhall.com [slashdot.org] ... that's close to .mil, right?
Well, close enough for government work, evidently.
Re:Is this supposed to be some sort of scandal? (Score:5, Informative)
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A government agency that had the foresight and intelligence to place their classified material only on systems that had no access to the outside world would also be one that didn't run un-patched windows boxes and could tell when they were compromised long before days, weeks, and especially months passed.
I have no such confidence that there wasn't at least a little classified data on the compromised machines, given the gross incompetence shown here by the Pentagon. Remember this is the same agency that h
Not entirely accurate either (Score:3, Interesting)
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a bold claim. What is supposed to be done and what ends up happening with information happens to be two radically differing things at times.
Just because it's only supposed to be on trusted systems doesn't mean it stays on them or that people strictly follow the rules
because the rules are oftentimes very constraining and they're in a hurry, etc.
Not stolen! (Score:5, Funny)
When will everyone learn the difference?
The solution is obvious: sic the Mafiaa on the attackers.
Mafia? No, I don't think so. (Score:2)
That didn't work when the US tried it on Castro. (But the mafiosi DID laugh all the way to the bank.)
The Mafia is very overrated as a tool for governmental clandestine activities.
They're CROOKS! DEAL with it!
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Mafiaa == RIAA + MPAA
Sorry. Missed the extra "a". (Should have been all-caps, though.)
Mafiaa != Mafia
Where'd you get that idea? I was under the impression that the RIAA is a direct descendant of the jukebox protection racket / Crosby organization. (That's what makes the "MAFIAA" coinage so poignant.)
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Not keeping up to date on fixes? (Score:3, Insightful)
army net security is indeed ridiculous. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds decent so far, hmmm?
The army has some committee that regularly decides which patches to approve.
Still not too bad, hmmm?
The committee approves patches for things that are being actively exploited.
Ponder that one for a moment. It means that every security hole will be exploitable on the army networks. Every security hole gets a chance, since "not exploited yet" means "not a problem".
Here Is A Fun April Fools Joke for the Chinese (Score:5, Funny)
Compose a few Microsoft Word documents about a planned nuclear attack on Beijing on the opening day of their olympics. Make it sound nice and juicy, say a few things about ICBMs, nuclear submarines just off their coastline. Mention the proposed megatons and expected damage. Talk about a free Taiwan
Let them chew on that.
Re:Here Is A Fun April Fools Joke for the Chinese (Score:4, Insightful)
$TRILLIONS for Insecurity (Score:2, Insightful)
Feel safer?
Re:$TRILLIONS for Insecurity (Score:5, Informative)
The vietnam war cost 600B$USD considering 1968 USD.
If you consider inflation based on the first inflation calculator google link that I clicked [westegg.com], plugging in 600B$ from 1968 yields:
What cost $600000000000 in 1968 would cost $3688102617038.20 in 2007.
thats 3.68 trillion in north american terms no?
Re:$TRILLIONS for Insecurity (Score:5, Informative)
The Vietnam cost of $600B is in 2005 dollars [fpif.org]. Using your calculator, that's already over $653B.
Iraq alone has already cost more than that, well over $700B.
And if you're interested in using a calculator, look into the fact that at least 80% of Iraq's cost is borrowed money, which (at typical 30 year Treasury bond rates) costs 155%. So that's already going to cost well over $1 TRILLION. And that's just Iraq, which has made us a lot more threatened.
Feel safer?
Re:$TRILLIONS for Insecurity (Score:5, Funny)
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In fact, the actual numbers of each wars are certainly higher. The reports on which they're based are purposely smaller, and there is lots of covert budget not reported.
For kicks, imagine what the US could have done with either of those budgets if we'd invested them constructively. For example, there were about 25M Iraqis when we invaded (we've killed hundreds
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All joking aside (Score:3, Insightful)
Could Honeypot Data be what was taken? (Score:2)
I am not an admin, but I recall working at a tech company whose admin operated a very realistic Honeypot setup complete with changing scripts that generated bogus logfiles and scripted users that logged in and out of several "windows boxes" running in VMs off an otherwise unused server (with no real data and not on the same network as the real servers).
He said it served as a canary in the coa
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it is (Score:4, Interesting)
There is of course also a serious network of computers at the Pentagon which handles serious military secrets. It doesn't run Windows. It isn't physically connected to the Internet. The Chinese can't touch it.
This is a silly FUD nonstory. There's no reason for the Pentagon to treat random secretarial computers with the same attention to security as they give classified computers. It would be very expensive, and my taxes are high enough already, thank you.
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Poem (Score:5, Funny)
Exploit SOCKS
Me Put Malware
On Your Box
Me Chinese,
Go To Town,
Me Pull Fast,
Your Data Down
Me Chinese,
Make Cheap Shoe
Take You Secrets
Laugh At You
Me Chinese
Let You Think
Here You Go
Bring You Drink
Me Chinese,
Me Play Joke
Me Put Pee-Pee
In Your Coke
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Gary McKinnon showed the way with .mil (Score:4, Informative)
He talked of blank MS passwords and using a tiny Perl script.
So maybe you do not crack or hack MS Pentagon computers but just surf on in.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/4977134.stm [bbc.co.uk]
You know, one time we had a box DoS, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one stinkin' Asian ip.
The smell, you know that Microsoft smell, the whole box. Smelled like... owned.
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What known exploit was used? (Score:3, Insightful)
This sounds more like an inept IT department than anything, and considering government pay grades if you aren't in _the_ top tier it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case really.
And to all you anti-Windows pro-Linux guys: How many groups of hackers does your OS have dedicated to breaking it? Microsoft damn sure has its flaws and issues, but most Windows exploits are found simply because Windows is _everywhere_ in the real world.
There is a reason NTFS was number two on the Slashdot FS poll, and it isn't because Windows and everything associated with it is total garbage. The 'open source attitude' is supposed to be about choice and sharing, not about elitism.
Sure, the default settings on Linux are more secure than on Windows. Linux is also not designed with the common man in mind. You shouldn't be surprised, especially IT guys, with how much of the problems with Windows are because of the marketing department rather than the actual coders. If the recent internal e-mails can't show that to you (what with the majority of the company bitching about how bad Vista was and how it shouldn't be released) then you are going through life blind.
Oh and yes, I use both Linux and Windows. Both have their uses. You don't throw out a screw driver when you get a power drill, and you don't throw out a ruler when you get a tape measure.
Re:What known exploit was used? (Score:5, Insightful)
Choice alone isn't very useful unless you make an effort to make good choices.
To the attacker trying to break into your systems, it really doesn't matter whether the security weaknesses were caused by marketing, the coders, or whatever, so I am not sure what your point is. What I can say is that what it looks like is a weak apology for Microsoft's poor security history. At any rate, as you indicated, marketing departments do not security make. You just gave a good reason why Windows would be a poor choice in a context where, presumably, security really matters. Therefore, the two are not on equal ground in this case. It is certainly not "elitist" to say that Linux would have been a superior choice (though probably OpenBSD would have been better still). Especially not when professional IT staff are not the "common man".
Even if the client machines must use Windows, the servers hosting the sensitive data certainly do not need to use it. The wrong tool was used for the job; there is nothing "elitist" about it.
Additional information (Score:5, Funny)
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Two months? (Score:2)
on the network?
What do you want to bet that their security manager has a phd and worth
every penny he makes.
simple question... (Score:4, Insightful)
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why the hell is any DoD network connected to the Internet????
On the surface, it does sound crazy, however in the technologically connected world we live in even secure networks must be connected to inherently insecure networks. Of course, those "secure" networks aren't so secure anymore and that's where IDSs/IPSs, firewalls, etc. come into play. The DoD must be able to communicate with DHS- and DOJ-type agencies at the federal level and probably many other entities at the state level and as such their data must be on those networks in order for full communication t
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why the hell is any DoD network connected to the Internet????
A few days ago the mantra was "Why is the Air Force blocking blogs"
The truth is there's multiple networks. There's operational (operational in the meaning of planning and conducting operations) networks which are secure, not using windows and are airgapped. There's adminstrative networks that are windows based where people do email, write memos, fill out leave forms, etc. Remember there are people that come into military fresh out of high school with little money, they don't own computers, so they use
Simple Answer (Score:2)
M$CROSOFT SUCKS (Score:5, Insightful)
I am in my 30's and I have been using Microsoft all my life, since I was about 9 years old (I started using computers when I was 7). I build their machines, I repair them, I even program them too. I also attempt to provide security on them as well. So I have been involved with Microsoft about as long as some people have been married. So I believe that I am entitled to get drunk occasionally and rant about the "Ex" for awhile. I earned it, so to speak.
Have people noticed that Microsoft is like a little sickly Boy in the Bubble? You have to protect him at all times.
You have to put up a router and a firewall at a minimum to protect your little herd of MS machines. Keep them safe from the big bad wolves and all that. Of course, these days you also need to have some really good routers with IDS, gateway anti-virus, etc. to do it even better. But that is not enough. Those little guys can get into trouble just "looking" out on the Internet. So you need anti-virus, anti-phishing, anti-spam, anti-spyware, anti-malware, etc.
When the Internet first started coming out, I remember telling people it would be cold day in hell before I hook my computer up to an unknown network in which anybody could send packets to my machines. Obviously, I had to get over that "shyness" and learn to adapt or die. However, since then, I have had to invest enormous amounts of time and energy and cold hard cash into preventative measures to keep my own Microsoft OS's from being hijacked by any asshat on the Internet.
There is billions being made, that's with a B folks, in 3rd party solution providers that specialize in providing the security solutions just to cover the fact that Microsoft can't code security if their "life depended on it".
Now that the Pentagon is using them, it would seem that in a roundabout way, Microsoft's life IS depending on it.
We can bash Microsoft all we want, and talk and talk and talk about it. What it really comes down to though, is that Microsoft just may not be a secure enough environment for our National Security apparatuses to be using. If we have to work that hard at it, with that many vendors, and have that many points in which someone can screw up and leave machines vulnerable, then we need another solution
On another side note, where the HELL are those super secured networks I keep hearing about that my tax dollars paid for huh? Apparently, the Pentagon's networks must be in really bad shape too. You would think that trillions of dollars could provide some pretty secure networks, communication infrastructures, and operating systems.
All that "bashing" on my part aside, Microsoft may make a decent OS for the little guy. The mom and pops at home with their families. Let's face it, it is easier to use then Linux, otherwise Linux would have a greater market share. Let's just not use it inside the Pentagon OK?
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I did not reference any article at all. I don't need any articles to tell me that in the past 10 years every Microsoft operating system seems to hemorrhage out security vulnerabilities. You only need to look at the simply massive number of updates that contain, "an attacker could take over a machine".
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The people who have been contracted by companies to design, implement, and maintenance solutions based on M$ products?
The people who have spent money to become certified?
The people who just don't speak out of their ass about Microsoft security flaws, and their failures to address them?
Yeah, those people cannot possibly have an educated, non-biased opinion about Microsoft as a whole.
I spell Microsoft with the $ since they care more about money t
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Overall, it is not free to provide a proper environment for any number of machines running any of the Microsoft OS. I was specifically referring to corporate situations.
Even if you predominantly use open source solutions to protect your networks, you still need to invest in secure routers, firewalls, etc.
Hitting us where we're centralized (Score:5, Insightful)
It reminds me of the Doonesbury comic years ago about Reagan's SDI shield, that was going to protect us from Soviet missiles by a single, always-perfect shield of protective devices. The comic was drawn in crayon, as I recall, with the voice of a little girl explaining that the world was beautiful because SDI was protecting us. Then in the last frame it said something abrupt to the effect of "Oops, one got through. Bye."
What makes this story so scary isn't just that something got broken into, it's the thing in the back of all our minds that says "my goodness, is that the place where All Knowledge of Everything is centrally stored?" Bad enough when someone breaks into your computer and gets all your bank accounts or passwords, but when someone breaks into The Government and gets all knowledge of launch codes, defensive systems, registries of guns in the US, files on who sympathizes with who, files on who calls who, etc. ... well, that info collected with the intent of defending us might suddenly be a liability.
That's why things like the telecom phone tapping, national IDs, etc. are so troublesome. The mere centralization of information at all for any reason is a risk that the Bush administration has been ignoring, working instead (for all we know, none of this being auditable) to pile all of everything in one fragile place. The founding fathers kept trying to decentralize things and minimize what in modern computer terms we'd call "single point of failure". They distributed power in a way that made it hard to just break in and take control, right down to making sure there was not a single head of government. It's too bad that in all the puffery we hear spouted about Constitutional original intent, the modern Republican leaders don't show more care about that kind of original intent.
And that while we have the Internet model ... (Score:2)
The nice thing about a distributed model is that it's much less f
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1. I can be trusted
2. The DB software can be trusted (and thus the engineers working on it)
3. The sys-admins doesn't log/know my passwords and abuses them (do you ever check your keyboard for keylogger?)
4. The guy handling the backups doesn't leave them on a train somewhere.
There are loads
Then the enemy is free software creation... (Score:2)
This is exactly my point. If that's our protection, then any one piece of wire can break everything. And that means we are vulnerable to any accident, to any single mole who gets through, etc.
But moreover, the US could not possibly hire enough people to make this work. To have good computation on that "other Internet", we need to keep up with what others are doing elsewhere in the world. In the real world, thousands or perh
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As for "the Church of Free Software", you may not like what has been done but please attempt to have a mature level of discussion instead of applying silly inappropriate labels.
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Just because it's SUPPOSED to be that way doesn't mean it happens that way. Saying that it doesn't happen is just sticking one's head in the sand.
What I'm wondering right now is just how much "Not for public consumption", Confidential, and Secret items got released. Leak enough lower classified and
potentially problematic (as in a little of it
Honey pot. (Score:4, Interesting)
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It would not be the first time that a government has gone to great length to convince others that the stolen data they have is real, when really it is not, rather it is carefully crafted misinformation designed to fubar any project or plans it is used in.
Yeah, and it would not be the first time that a government has gone to great length to convince others that they are completely incompetent.
Ok..... (Score:2)
Microsoft likes to spend money on selling the same pile of shit packaged in a new wrapper, instead of producing anything actually useful.
This is what happens when Government officials have a threesome with Ballmer and Gates.
Secret is as secret does... (Score:2)
Thanks Homeland security......good job.
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It is America's Fault (Score:2)
Diplomacy behind the times? (Score:2)
AT LAST! A Windows security story tagged WINDOWS (Score:2)
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Who knew?
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Re:Safe? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Safe? (Score:5, Insightful)
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So it's quite logic that the people forget about and ignore the constitution. They have a good role model for it.
Re:I guess... (Score:4, Funny)
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