US Defense Contractors and Universities Targeted In Cyberattacks 79
Trailrunner7 writes, quoting Threatpost: "Researchers have identified an ongoing series of attacks, possibly emanating from China, that are targeting a number of high-profile organizations, including SCADA security companies, universities and defense contractors. The attacks are using highly customized malicious files to entice targeted users into opening them and starting the compromise. The attack campaign is using a series of hacked servers as command-and-control points and researchers say that the tactics and tools used by the attackers indicates that they may be located in China. The first evidence of the campaign was an attack on Digitalbond, a company that provides security services for ICS systems. ... In addition to the attack on Digitalbond, researchers have found that the campaign also has hit users at Carnegie Mellon University, Purdue University and the University of Rhode Island."
This is news? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is absolutely nothing new
Cyberweapon Proliferation (Score:4, Insightful)
When we start using cyberweapons against people without constraint and then post a whole bunch of articles about how cost effective it is, other nations see that as a reason enough to use them against us. Most states cant afford enough money to build $35 million dollar fighter jets or spy satilites, but can slip some script kiddies a few bucks to send out some spam with exploits in it.
Re:Biggest Change (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure we can guess, because it's just the same goddamn hacking methods. The only new thing that'll obviously change is the quality and complexity of the malicious software - like more intelligent worms/trojans/botnets/whatever. Stuxnet wasn't the first pistol, it was the first heat-seeker.
I would just like to point out... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why we have administrator-level access and ultra-restrictive GPOs in the first place, right? In the hopes that the few people who can actually do damage to computers and servers aren't monkeys banging away in the hopes of producing Shakespeare?
As a final note, I would like to point out that ending my post with a question mark makes it seem more poingant and totally deserving a five. Except I spoiled it. Crap.
Re:China (Score:4, Insightful)
How many Chinese have been killed by other Chinese? (Google "Great Leap Forward" and "Cultural Revolution")
(Of course, you can point out that Americans kill Americans in mass numbers -- the Civil War,and, of course, the entire process of claiming the continent from the natives.. but then you can also compare Chinese civil wars and various ethnic clashes at those points in history, as well. Pick a century, and line 'em up, and see who is more brutal. (Answer: Probably no one to any meaningful degree, because we're all human, and thus, we all pretty much behave the same way over a span of time. You can always cherry-pick a decade or two where one culture was unusually peaceful, or pick a small or isolated subculture, but the longer you stretch the timescale or widen the definition of 'culture', the more it becomes obvious that we're not a peaceful species.))