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Technology

China Hackers Hit U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Dec. 21, 2011 -

A group of hackers in China breached the computer defenses of America's top business-lobbying group and gained access to everything stored on its systems, including information about its three million members, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The intrusions may have lasted for a year before they were discovered in May. Details are just now being released. The full extent of the attack is not known. The U.S. and China both have laws against this activity.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Foreign cyber attack hits US infrastructure

Nov. 18, 2011 - In what may be the first case of a cyberattack of critical infrastructure from outside the United States, intruders burned out a pump in an Illinois public water facility.

The attack was reportedly traced to a computer in Russia and took advantage of account passwords stolen during a hack of a US company that makes Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) software.

The most upsetting part of this story is the belief that so far, the attackers were only experimenting, but they could do much greater harm because they apparently had control of the water plant's master station.

Source: Breitbart

Water Warfare? Downstate Cyber Attack Could Trigger Chicago Security Concerns - Chicagoist

'Son of Stuxnet' virus could be used to attack critical computers worldwide

Oct. 19, 2011 - The same programmers that developed Stuxnet to attack Iran's nuclear production computers may be behind a serious new threat to critical infrastructure computers around the world.

The mysterious Stuxnet worm -- perhaps the most powerful ever created -- managed to infiltrate computer systems in Iran and do damage to that nation's nuclear research program. The new worm, dubbed Duqu, has no such targeted purpose.

The existence of the virus has been discovered, but no apparent damage has been caused. Experts believe that those who control the virus have virtual control of the infected computers, but have not caused any problems so far.

Source: Bob Sullivan - MSNBC

Massive Global Cyberattack Targeting U.S., U.N. Discovered; Experts Blame China

Aug. 3, 2011 - The online security firm McAfee will announce details today of the world's most extensive case of cyber-espionage. Some 72 networks -- 49 of them in the U.S. -- were infiltrated, resulting in a massive loss of information. And if even a fraction of that information is used to produce better competing products, or give the thieves a competitive advantage in key negotiations, this information could result in a huge economic loss.

Targets for the intrusions -- identified from logs tracked to a single server -- included computer networks of the United Nations secretariat, a U.S. Energy Department lab, some dozen U.S. defense firms and a U.K. defense contractor.

Analysts believe that the attacks came from China.

Source: Fox

Stuxnet returns to bedevil Iran's nuclear systems

July 20, 2011 - At a press conference on July 19th an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman announced that Iran was replacing all of their 5,000 to 6,000 centrifuges with improved and faster models in a completely different location. This information is seen as proof that the Stuxnet virus that targeted Iran's nuclear facilities in June of 2010 caused irreparable damage to their nuclear program, and that their claims that they had succeeded in cleansing their system was not true.

It took Iranian and Russian computer and cyber-terrorism experts a year to cleanse the system. This gave security agencies their first indicator of the time it takes to overcome a large-scale, sophisticated cyber attack.

Source: DEBKAfile

Pentagon admits suffering major cyber attack in March

Jul. 15, 2011 - Admitting that foreign hackers had stollen thousands of sensitive files from the Pentagon's "most sensitive systems," Deputy Defence Secretary William Lynn rolled out a a plan for strengthening US cyber capabilities and protecting our data.

The plan would treat cyberspace in a similar manner to land, air and sea.
"In the 21st Century, bits and bytes can be as threatening as bullets and bombs," Mr Lynn said, unveiling the plan.

Some 24,000 files were stolen from the Pentagon's computer network in March. Previous cyber attacks have been blamed on China or Russia.

Source: BBC

Netanyahu unveils Israel's anti-cyber terror taskforce

May 18, 2011 - ILsraeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has established a national cybernetic taskforce to protect Israel from possible harm to its defense systems and infrastructure networks.

Netanyahu warned. "Electricity, credit cards, water, transportation, traffic lights – every one of those is computerized and therefore susceptible to attack. There is an immediate need to form defenses in the face of such threats."

Source: Haaretz

Israeli Test on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay

Jan. 17, 2011 - Israel's retiring chief of the Mossad intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, recently announced that Iran’s nuclear development efforts had been set back by several years by the effects of the Stuxnet virus. The "computer worm" apparently incapacitated one-fifth of Iran's centrifuges.

The gruff Mr. Dagan, whose organization has been accused by Iran of being behind the deaths of several Iranian scientists, told the Israeli Knesset in recent days that Iran had run into technological difficulties that could delay a bomb until 2015.

The Stuxnet virus was especially targeted to Iran's nuclear development, but were tested first at Israel's Dimona facities. This information bolsters the evidence that the Stuxnet was developed by U.S. and Israeli experts.

The success of the virus has given Israel additional time to deal with the threat. Before it was deployed last year, Israel had believed that Iran was on the cusp of success.

Source: New York Times