Chinese Hack Attacks on DoD Networks Coordinated

An anonymous reader writes " The Naval Network Warfare Command says that Chinese hackers are relentlessly targeting Defense Department networks with cyber attacks. The 'volume, proficiency and sophistication' of the attacks supports the theory that the attacks are government supported. The motives of the attacks emanating from China include technology theft, intelligence gathering, exfiltration, research on DOD operations and the creation of dormant presences in DOD network for future action. Onlookers warn that current US defenses against these attacks are 'dysfunctional', and that more aggressive measures should be taken to ensure government network safety."

Re:Onlookers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why in the hell do you have your secret and SCI sides on the internet? That's DOD/DOE no-no number one!

Separate systems, separate networks, separate terminals.

I can tell you from my experience as a person who contracts as a "Q" that not only is the DOE stepping up their security methods, they're cutting funding to places that don't keep the mustard. LANL may be cut at the end of this FY -- thanks to the fiasco a few weeks ago where someone walked out of the labs with thumb drives of info. Needless to say, they were audited, and they brought out a lot of epoxy to glue down the USB/Firewire ports.

Also, weak passwords should be pretty much a thing of a past -- now that DOE's mandating that everyone use CryptoCards in the next year-ish (no, not those expensive RSA things -- they're out of a company in Canada).

Re:Idiots

[dbIII]

As far as being difficult for outsiders to do business, we have one of the most open-to-business countries there is

There are many examples of why this is incorrect - sugar, steel and beef for a start. Why do you think many US foods are full of a more expensive sweetener made from corn which doesn't taste as good? Geological history has left the USA with sulphur rich coal which results in the cheap steel being of very low quality and unsuitable for some roles (Liberty ships were the most exhaustively documented example). You have good beef - but there is very stong protectionism there. The US pharmacutical industry is another big can of protectionist worms which is indirectly fueling enormous qualitities of spam which you would have noticed. There are reasons behind all this but there is still no reason for people to lie about it and talk about "free trade" - Australia was solidly screwed on a free trade agrement with the USA but our representative stupidly agreed to a time limit and they would take whatever was offered at the end of it.

As for pollution regs - they are getting very tough in China because they have to be.

Re:Idiots

[Karzz1]

..."it's about time we had a new superpower to keep the US under thumb."

Be careful of what you wish for my friend.

Re:Far outstripping other attackers

[Vicissidude]

Hee hee you sound like you're astroturfing, it furthers the policy of the New World Order to keep the pathetic FUD regarding China

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/04/01/us.china.pla ne/ [cnn.com]
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/05/18/ep3.ceremony /index.html [cnn.com]

In April of 2001, a Chinese fighter jet "accidentally" hit a US Navy surveillance plane flying over international waters, forcing that plane to make an emergency landing in China. The crew was detained for 11 days. Chinese technicians examined in detail the plane's highly sensitive equipment that could monitor electronic communications and aircraft movements. The plane was not released back to the US until July 3rd.

Re:Idiots

[JackieBrown]

We are not a democracy. We are a republic.
Bush did win the majority on the last election.
China is not known for its enviromentalism either or human rights record.

Re:Far outstripping other attackers

[PHPfanboy]

He might be a fucktard, but you sir, are being very flexible with the facts. I'd go so far to call you the kind of dangerous liar that likes to engage in expeditionary warfare. Would love to see you send your own kids, then we'll see how much of a hero you are.

Now, I'm not Chinese and have no special affiliation with them, but according to this inconvenient report http://rand.org/publications/MG/MG260/index.html [rand.org] by RAND Corporation (Wikipedia says this: The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit global policy think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the United States armed forces)

China's defense spending is estimated to be between 2.3 and 2.8 percent of the nation's GDP. This is 40 to 70 percent higher than official Chinese government figures, but substantially lower than previous outside estimates of the share of GDP devoted to defense. ... The authors forecast that Chinese military spending is likely to rise from an estimated $69 billion in 2003 to $185 billion by 2025-approximately 61 percent of what the Department of Defense spent in 2003.

As for: They are modernizing their military far beyond what's necessary to attack any other nation. I'd add - "just like the US are...."

And lastly: "The premier of China has threatened to nuke Los Angeles" - it was the 2nd in command of the army who said it in response to a declassified US army report that named China as one of six possible nations that could face nuclear strikes from America.

Remind us when was the last time China went to war? And when was the last time the US did?

What say you now, Sir?