U.S. Reports Unconfirmed Cyber Threat
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WASHINGTON -- The government warned on Thursday of a possible Internet attack on U.S. stock market and banking Web sites from a radical Muslim group, but officials said the threat was unconfirmed and seemed to pose no immediate danger.
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(InfoWorld) - China Tuesday denied allegations that its militaryÂ hacked a Pentagon networkÂ in JuneÂ -- the second time in as many weeks that the country has responded to charges of sponsoring computer attacks. "Some people are making wild accusations against China and wantonly saying the Chinese military attacked the Pentagon's computer network," Jiang Yu, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said in Beijing, according to the state-controlled Xinhua news service. "These are totally groundless and also reflect a Cold War mentality," she added. Jiang was responding to a story published by the Financial Times this weekend that quoted American officials who said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) was behind the June hack. One person familiar with the incident told the Financial Times that there was a "very high level of confidence... trending towards total certainty" that the PLA was responsible. Other sources told the publication that Chinese hackers probed the Pentagon system for months before the attacks, which forced the U.S. to take the network offline for more than a week. The Department of Defense downplayed the attack, but declined to point the finger at any one country or group. The attack on an unclassified e-mail network in the Office of the Secretary of Defense required that the systems be taken offline, spokesman Bryan Whitman acknowledged today, but backup networks kicked in. He would not confirm that China hackers were behind the assault, saying only that it's often difficult to pinpoint the origin of an intrusion into computer systems. But the Pentagon did not stand idly by, he said. "Cyber or non-kinetic type threats to military computer networks are viewed as just as real and just as significant as physical or kinetic threats," Whitman said in a statement. "The department aggressively responds to deter all intrusions to defend what is known as the GIG, the global information grid." Just a month before the attack, the Department of Defense had issued a report claiming that the PLA fieldsÂ first-strike cyberwarfareÂ units whose arsenals include computer viruses they might unleash on enemy networks. When the Pentagon released its annual report on the state of China's military strength in late May, Jiang, the same foreign ministry spokeswoman who blasted the story today, took exception to its overall tone, although she didn't mention cyberwarfare specifically. The U.S., she said then, "continues to spread myth of the 'China Threat' by exaggerating China's military strength and expenses out of ulterior motives." Last week, Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, raised the same issue during her visit to Beijing after the popular weekly Der Spiegel said systems at several government ministries, including Merkel's own office, had beenÂ infected with spywareÂ planted by Chinese hackers. In statements made during a press conference Aug. 27, Chinese premier Wen Jiabao called the reports of "grave concern" and promised that China would cooperate with Germany in its investigation. Today, Jiang seemed to echo Wen's comments. "The Chinese government has always opposed any Internet-wrecking crime, including hacking, and cracked down on it according to the law," she said. The Chinese military has been involved with hacking and viruses since at least the early 1990s, according to a 2000 paper written by Timothy Thomas of the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth. Coincidentally, the president of both China and the U.S. will face off this week in Australia during meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. Hu Jintao, China's president, arrived in the country yesterday, while President George W. Bush arrived in Sydney today. Trade and climate change are expected to lead the agenda during the 21-country talks. Hu and Bush are scheduled to meet one-on-one during the conference. Â  Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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A wide-area network operated by an unnamed contractor has dozens of weaknesses that threaten data used in the government's Medicare and Medicaid programs, according to a report released Tuesday by the GAO.
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A new study from the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) and America Online (AOL) paints a dire picture of the state of security in the land of the home PC.
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The Pentagon on Tuesday said  computer hackers gained access to an unclassified e-mail system  in the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, but declined  comment on a report that the Chinese army was responsible.
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The U.S. government has warned U.S. private financial services of an al Qaeda call for a cyber attack against U.S. online stock trading and banking Web sites beginning Friday, officials said.
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Experts are warning that last May's cyberattacks against Estonia could be a precursor to larger and more damaging attacks against other nations, including the U.S.
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The Pentagon on Tuesday said computer hackers gained access to an unclassified e-mail system in the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, but declined comment on a report that the Chinese army was responsible.
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(InfoWorld) - A planned cyberattack against U.S. financial institutions by Islamic jihadists has so far failed to materialize, Internet security observers said Friday. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)Â warned of the possible attack Thursday, apparently prompted by discussions earlier in the week in a jihadist discussion forum, said Adam Raisman an analyst with the SITE (Search for International Terrorist Entities) institute, which tracks terrorists. The attack, dubbed "the Electronic Battle of Guantanamo" by jihadists, had been scheduled to start Friday and last until the end of the month, Raisman said. It was planned in retaliation for the U.S.'s holding of suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison camp, he said. Both Raisman and Jose Nazario of Arbor Networks Inc.'s Security Engineering and Response Team said they saw no evidence of an attack coming Friday. Arbor, which monitors the Internet backbone for distributed denial-of-service attacks, saw no new attempts to create large attacks, Nazario said. The threat, which DHS attributed to the al-Qaeda terrorist group, seems out of step with the group's past efforts to focus on physical damage instead of cyberdamage, Nazario said. "We think there's a low chance that this is ready to go," he added. Earlier Friday, DHS spokeswoman Joanna Gonzalez downplayed the possible attack, saying her organization had "no information to corroborate the threat," and was sending out the alert "out of an abundance of caution." Over the past few months, jihadists had threatened similar attacks against the Vatican and Royal Air Maroc Web sites, Raisman said. By Friday afternoon, Internet research firm Netcraft Inc. had seen no downtime on the U.S. financial Web sites that it monitors, according to Rich Miller, an analyst with the company. Even if an attack were launched, it would require a certain degree of technical sophistication to succeed against major financial institutions, which are generally pretty well defended, he said. "We're talking about sites that have put a lot of security in place," he said. The U.S. Congress has required financial institutions to take strong measures to protect customer privacy since 1999, when the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act passed, added Pam Johnston, a lawyer with the Foley & Lardner LLP law firm and former federal prosecutor focused on bank fraud. "Banks have been at the forefront of sophistication" in protecting online data, she said. While neither the Vatican nor Royal Air Maroc threats resulted in successful attacks, there have been widespread denial of service attacks in the past. In January, about 800 Danish Web sites were hacked in response to the furor over a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. Cybersecurity experts disagreed about whether the latest DHS warning was useful. Banks have taken several measures since the Sept. 11. 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. to secure their data, said Vivek Mehra, chief enterprise architect for global financial services at Keane Inc., an IT consulting firm. "The threat is overstated," Mehra added. "[The warning] is almost meaningless. It doesn't really change anything." But Johnston and Arbor's Nazario said DHS did the right thing by alerting financial institutions of the threat. "It gives companies a chance to ask their IT guys, 'Are we buttoned down?'" Johnston said. Â
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Symantec Corp. sent out what turned to be a false alarm thought its early warning system late Friday, warning companies that an Internet-crippling attack was under way.
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The failure to appoint an assistant secretary for cybersecurity and incomplete planning are raising questions about how well prepared the Department of Homeland Security is for a cyberattack directed against the nation's critical infrastructure.
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The unpatched security hole could be used by a remote attacker to compromise a vulnerable Mac, advisories say.
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Officials from cybersecurity company tells the U.S. Congress that a data breach notification bill with reasonable security practice requirements would protect Americans.
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The United States had information of a  possible attack on an American radio facility in Cyprus, but  authorities on the island have dismissed the threat, the  Cypriot justice minister said on Thursday.
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The US has a new head of cyber security, amid concerns about the Bush administration&#39;s commitment to protecting computer networks from attack.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S. Department of Defense took an estimated 1,500 computers offline Wednesday after a security breach within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). "Elements of the OSD unclassified e-mail system were taken offline yesterday afternoon due to a detected penetration," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, according to the transcript of a Thursday press conference. "A variety of precautionary measures are being taken. We expect the system to be online again very soon." Department of Defense officials had little more to say about the attack, Thursday and would not confirm the number of systems that had been taken offline. The Pentagon is exposed to "perhaps hundreds of attacks a day," and the department has back up systems in place, Gates said. "There is no anticipated adverse impact on ongoing operations," he added. "There will be some administrative disruptions and personal inconveniences." However, it looks like the secretary himself will not be inconvenienced. "I don't do e-mail," he said in response to a question. "I'm a very low-tech person."
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Researchers in the U.S. say they've shown how a network designed to make it harder to trace Internet surfers could be compromised.