Pentagon Confirms 2008 Computer Breach — 'Worst Ever' 157
jowifi writes "The New York Times reports that the Pentagon has confirmed that, in 2008, a foreign agent instigated 'the most significant breach of US military computers ever' using a USB flash drive. While the breach was previously reported on Wired and the LA Times, this is the first official confirmation of the attack that led to the banning of USB drives on government computers."
Re:Obligatory (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The right reaction? (Score:5, Informative)
From TFA...
In an early step, the Defense Department banned the use of portable flash drives with its computers, though it later modified the ban.
Fixing the vulnerabilities takes time. It was just an emergency measure until they could investigate and come up with better policy.
Re:The right reaction? (Score:5, Informative)
They have.
Look, they have two completely separate computer networks. They've got a network that can access all the Classified Military Shit, and then they have the computers that can access Everything Bad in the Multiverse. (My terms, not theirs.) The two never meet. Never ever ever, and not even then.
99% of the time, you work with the Unclassified stuff. It's a PITA to work with Classified documents. You've got to go to a secure room, you can't make a copy unless you've signed off a billion times, you have to work on a special computer, you have to have a buddy / guard / watcher, and you've got to go through a debriefing after you've goofed around with it.
If your average worker / troop / contractor picked up a USB drive and put it into their EBitM network and it took over every machine in a billionth of a second and sent all the info on the EBitM network to China, Russia, and Zork the Evil, the risk to National Security would be zilch. Yeah, it would be a PITA to fix the compys, but it would be no worse than the same PITA you'd get in any large civilian network. The only difference is that it's a huge fucking PR nightmare. Think about how embarrassing it would be if Norton was taken down due to a worm. Now go up two orders of magnitude.
The computers you see the troops using are almost always personal property used for emailing back home, watching movies, playing games, and otherwise fucking around. The work computers are usually tied into the EBitM network and they use them for work. Unless you are one of The Anointed Few, you haven't even seen a computer that's handled Classified information.
Re:Government contractors.. (Score:3, Informative)
Let me guess, it's Alice and Bob again.
Nah, it's Mallory.
Re:This is likely why MS has GPOs in W7 (Score:4, Informative)
Like "Software Restriction Policies" [microsoft.com] in windows XP and AppLocker [microsoft.com] in Windows 7?