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Nation-state attackers affiliated with the Chinese government have made off with a trove of undersea military secrets, according to a report.
Hackers were able to mount a lateral attack after compromising the networks of a Navy contractor working for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Rhode Island, according to a Washington Post report, citing American officials.
The result? “Massive amounts of highly sensitive data” flowed into the hands of China, unnamed officials told the paper, including “secret plans to develop a supersonic anti-ship missile for use on U.S. submarines by 2020.”
The incident happened January and February, the sources said, and resulted in 614 gigabytes of data, most of it highly sensitive info related to American offensive and defensive systems, including cryptography systems for secure communication, signals and sensor data, and the Navy’s electronic submarine warfare library, which contains information about adversary radar platforms.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:25AM (11 children)
Someone exfiltrates several hundred gigabytes out of your protected network, you even have enough sensors data to tell months after the fact, yet didn't realize it the minute it was happening?
This is either a propaganda lie, or a sign of gross, premeditated incompetence.
I wouldn't put the first beyond the government, and I wouldn't put the second beyond any commercial entity.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:52AM (1 child)
back in the day a thief snatched a laptop from between the ankles of an MI-5 agent as he was taking a leak in a train station.
i eventually decided that was a setup, for example to lead soviet cryptologists to crack the wrong cipher.
perhaps all those gigabytes were put there shortly before the PRC was invited in.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday June 13 2018, @12:43PM
aka: "disinformation" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ledow on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:35AM (7 children)
1) They broke into your secure systems. You obviously don't know how to make them.
2) They did it without you knowing at first.
3) They then managed to re-transmit that data somehow. Back over your own lines maybe? If so, boy do your "secure" systems need work.
4) The data stolen could be useful to a foreign government (i.e. not encrypted end-to-end with good keys)
5) You then claim they are Chinese state.
The most worrying of thoseis the latter. Without proof, I could literally just say "The Russian government hacked me", which is incredibly different to:
- Some place in Russia hacked me.
- Some Russian guy hacked me.
- I can prove that the data ended up in Russian government hands.
- Someone else hacked me and made it look like it was coming from the Russian government.
I've noticed a trend in the last few years of literally just attributing attacks to nation states, with zero explanation. And then, in the next sentence, saying that cyber-attacks are a justifiable cause for military retaliation. This is a slippery slope, especially with certain morons in power, which only ends in a state declaring war on another "just because", or based on entire false information.
The only takeaway I really have is: The US can't secure their most secure systems adequately from the Internet.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @09:02AM
"What great students," the teacher thought to himself. Not a single one misbehaved as the teacher gave his lesson. In fact, all of this teacher's classes were like this; it was to the point where he was famous for his teaching ability. All around the country, this man was known as 'The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher'. This was not just a reference to his unmatched ability to teach, but to something else as well: The Six Lessons.
"The Six Lessons," as he referred to them, were six fundamental life lessons that everyone needed to know. The first lesson was that men had the fundamental right to utilize women and children as they pleased. The second lesson was that men had the fundamental right to utilize women and children as they pleased. The third lesson was that men had the fundamental right to utilize women and children as they pleased. The fourth lesson was that men had the fundamental right to utilize women and children as they pleased. The fifth lesson was that men had the fundamental right to utilize women and children as they pleased. The sixth lesson was that men had the fundamental right to utilize women and children as they pleased. Truly, this teacher emphasized repetition.
Suddenly, long after the teacher had finished his lesson, the bell rang. "Wonderful, class! We had a truly great time together, and I am pleased to have instructed you," the teacher said gleefully. He continued, "I am fully confident that you all understand The Six Lessons now. You are dismissed." After that, the teacher walked out of the room. The students could leave as well, but something was wrong; no one moved.
It wasn't just that the students wouldn't get up; they couldn't get up. Upon observing the children, one would understand what was transpiring. Just like all of his past students, they did not wear clothes. Just like all of his past students, they did not move. And also just like all of his past students, they would rot away in due time and be replaced with more lovely children. And he could not wait to thoroughly instruct more young, impressionable minds...
(Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Wednesday June 13 2018, @10:02AM
There was a hack on winter olympic servers attributed to North Korea. Later turned out hackers were Russian based... source:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/08/analysis_suggests_north_korea_not_behind_olympic_destroyer_malware_attack/ [theregister.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @04:58PM (3 children)
What you ascribe to conspiracies and warmongering is more easily explained by the nature of how intelligence and spy-work works. As an example, imagine the vice-chairman of of China is really a double-agent working for the US, and has told the US that it was China who stole this information. Are you really expecting a press release from the US saying, "Our high-placed spy in the Chinese government told us this?" Likewise, imagine they managed to sneak a bug into the meeting room in the Kremlin. Do you really expect the US to say, "our listening device in the Kremlin recorded Putin saying he did this."
Moreover, would you believe them if they said it?
When it comes to covert intelligence, for the general public you just need to believe or not believe them. If you don't believe them, fine... but don't take their lack of supporting evidence as being indicative of anything.
(Score: 5, Touché) by ledow on Wednesday June 13 2018, @08:22PM
Yeah, we just need to take people at their word that Iraq has WMD.
And then kill millions of people on that basis.
Present evidence to the appropriate courts or organisations, or don't make the claim in public.
You'll notice that plenty of countries, faced with actual attacks involving the deaths of people (e.g. attacks on UK soil by suspected Russian agents), present an allegation, evidence for it, take it to court, and get it proven. Not just assert something like that.
I expect people to be able to back up any claim made in public to the satisfaction of those who make such decisions and not have media quote "officials" that are entirely unnamed and unwilling to confirm that claim in public (and, yes, in this case, it's a news article, but I could link to where named US military officials gave press conferences equating attacks with acts of war, and then alleging that a particular state was behind a particular attack, with literally nothing else said or done about it).
If it's serious and provable enough to NAME A COUNTRY, it's serious enough you could end up in a war, so it's serious enough to have to present your evidence. Otherwise, you keep your mouth shut, as an "official".
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:00AM
I ascribe these sorts of stories to the fact that the US has such a huge part of it's economy invested it the military that it has no choice but to keep inventing enemies, or people will start to ask for the spending to be cut back, so that maybe some money could be spent on schools, or maybe healthcare or something that might help ordinary Americans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @09:53AM
There have been cases of spies making shit up to send to their paymasters.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:01PM
It's the Mafia-like habit of our governments: If someone from $family did something, there is no way $family didn't know, because otherwise they would kill him for acting unauthorized. Conversely, if that member gets caught by someone else, $family doesn't know that he was doing anything, and would have not allowed it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @04:52PM
with the opm "hack" the fuckheads/traitors in the US gov hired a chinese contractor(as if they are not all beholden to the state) to process the data. said chinese contractor accidentally gave it to chinese state folks. US gov scum reported it as super hackers from china. iow, it's likely a combination of all three. treason, incompetence and lies. at least the spooks are getting granny's email and the pigs are busting potheads. we can all rest easy.