U.S. vulnerable to large chinese cyberattack

[Donald Polish]

China has surpassed the United States in conducting cyber warfare and one day may launch a large-scale attack that the U.S. will be unable to respond to, some of the nation’s foremost national security experts warned Wednesday.
Unlike nuclear threats, where overwhelming U.S. stockpiles are considered a deterrent to China’s smaller numbers of warheads, no such balance exists in the cyber realm, said Zbigniew K. Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s former national security adviser.
China’s superior capabilities in cyber warfare create the possibility “to paralyze an opponent entirely without killing anyone — that is very tempting,” Brzezinski said at the first Senate Armed Services Committee hearing under new Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
U.S. vulnerable to large Chinese cyberattack experts warn WashingtonExaminer.com
Americans must know who is our biggest enemy. the Chinese won't even attack America but destroy our security system or service lines' system. Our Government let them to carry out this attack!!! We may win the hundreds of local wars but lose one big cyberwar. Thus we will lose everything becoming slaves at the hand of winners.

 

[waltky]

Pentagon lookin' at hackin' the jihadis...

Pentagon Ponders Cyberattacks on Islamic State
Dec 21, 2015 | WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is considering increasing the pace and scope of cyberattacks against Islamic State, arguing that more aggressive efforts to disable the extremist group's computers, servers and cellphones could help curtail its appeal and disrupt potential terrorist attacks.

Military hackers and coders at Cyber Command, based at Fort Meade, Md., have developed an array of malware that could be used to sabotage the militants' propaganda and recruitment capabilities, said U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions. But closing off the extremists' communications faces resistance from the FBI and intelligence officials. They warn that too sweeping an effort to constrict Internet, social media and cellphone access in Syria and Iraq would shut a critical window into the militants' locations, leadership and intentions.

Moreover, a shutdown of communication nodes could affect humanitarian aid organizations, opposition groups, U.S.-backed rebels and others caught up in the Syrian civil war. A virus could spread to computers outside the country. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter will meet with his cybercommanders this week at the Pentagon to examine the options, including jamming and viruses, that could be used to target the Sunni Muslim group's communications, according to the officials.

The Cyber Operations Center on Fort Gordon, Ga., is home to signal and military intelligence non-commissioned officers, who watch for and respond to network attacks from adversaries.​

The White House directed senior Pentagon officials to prepare options for a stepped-up cyberoffensive after evidence indicated that the husband-and-wife shooters who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., on Dec. 2 had become self-radicalized on the Internet and had pledged fealty to Islamic State on Facebook, said the officials. Those in the White House "want to see options" for cyberattacks, said one official. "That doesn't mean they are all in play. It just means they want to look at what ways we can pressure" Islamic State.

For now, the White House is leaning toward more targeted cyberattacks when intelligence can pinpoint specific phones, computers or other digital devices used by the Web-savvy militants. "If you do see something that is in service of an active operation, you may want to take some action to disrupt that operation," Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, said in an interview.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Hacks & cyberattacks in 2015 spur increased cyber security for 2016...

More Secure Cyber Environment Could Be Coming in 2016
January 01, 2016 | WASHINGTON — There’s little doubt that 2015 will not be remembered fondly by cybersecurity professionals. With millions of successful hacking attacks, and uncounted documents breached or stolen, it seemed at times that nothing could be done to stop the assault on the globe’s computer systems.

The threats and challenges came from many directions. Hackers believed to have been assisted by the Chinese military swiped millions of personnel records of many current and former U.S. federal workers. Even more embarrassingly, millions of registered users of Ashley Madison, a website promoting adult infidelity hook-ups, were exposed for public view. Washington’s adversaries, such as Moscow and Tehran, stepped up their efforts to gain access to critical U.S. infrastructure systems, while millions of new devices, from cars to toy dolls to everything in between, went online and increasingly became targets for hacking. And ransomware attacks exploded in frequency in 2015, prompting the FBI to issue a rare public cyber-warning. So is 2016 doomed to just more of the same? On one hand, there’s no reason to expect hackers won’t try to out-do themselves over the coming year, crashing systems and running roughshod over protected data. That said, several cyber-analysts are telling VOA that last year’s flood of bad cyber-news might actually be a harbinger of a more cyber-secure new year.

An illustration picture shows a projection of binary code on a man holding a laptop computer.​

Awareness = security

“This was likely the worst year [for cyber-attacks] in the United States in terms of the number of records stolen – 175 million, and those are just the ones we know about,” said Jim Ambrosini, managing director with CohnReznick, a national consulting firm. “And one of the weakest links is user awareness.” With over two decades experience in cyber, Ambrosini has seen a lot of hacking trends come and go. Perhaps the most persistent threat, he said, also is the oldest and most obvious: phishing attacks. Last year alone over 300 million new forms of malware were introduced,” said Ambrosini. “This is becoming a very popular channel for hackers because effectively there’s no patch for human ignorance. People like to click on things and fall for some these attacks, so it’s critically importantly to make sure that users are well informed and trained to recognize these malicious attacks and know what to do about them.”

Hackers who said they are loyal to the Islamic State group, hacked the U.S. Central Command Twitter account last year.​

But 2015’s hacking firestorm did more than just raise awareness among lower level end users of the threats at play, said Ambrosini. Increasingly, he said, those in charge are paying attention, as well. Bryce Boland, a V.P. and Chief Technology Officer with the cybersecurity firm Fireeye, agreed. “The members of the boards of directors for firms are now paying attention,” he says. “Board level scrutiny is going to change how CISO’s (Chief Information Security Officers) work, and they’re going to have to start showing progress.” He added that as regulators increasingly turn their attention to firms that neglect cybersecurity, pressure will build to make comprehensive security solutions an even greater priority.

Part of the building of 'Unit 61398,' a secretive Chinese military department, is seen on the outskirts of Shanghai.​

Reviewing 2015, Boland said many private companies realized they don’t have sufficient resources to operate and maintain a sophisticated security operation by themselves. Alarmed by 2015’s hacking attacks, Boland predicts more CEO’s and boards of directors will increasingly turn their cybersecurity over to private contractors working from the cloud. “Most CEO’s now realize [a hack] is a matter of when, not if,” Boland said. “Companies have realized they don’t have the staff to effectively put in and manage all these tools,” CohnReznick’s Ambrosini told VOA. “And they know they need a reaction plan once a breach occurs. That’s things like making sure you have good backups, having a sound response plan. I can tell you, when these things happen, it’s a lot of people in a conference room pointing fingers and nothing gets done, and you don’t want to be running around scrambling in a moment of crisis.”

Chinese hacking slows?

See also:

US Says Its Internet Speeds Tripled in 3.5 Years
December 30, 2015 | WASHINGTON — U.S. Internet connection speeds have tripled in a three-and-a-half year span to keep up with consumer demands for streaming video and downloading content but the United States still lags many other countries.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said in a report on Wednesday average download connection speeds had increased to nearly 31 megabits per second (Mbps) in September 2014 from about 10 Mbps in March 2011. Rising Internet speeds have been driven by consumer demands for growing amounts of bandwidth to watch movies, play video games and download data. The industry is ramping up efforts to boost speeds. Google Inc is offering up to 1,000 Mbps in nine cities, while AT&T is offering the same speed in 20 cities and plans to add 36 metro areas next year. Comcast Corp said last week it is testing its own 1,000 Mbps service in Philadelphia and by the end of 2016 will offer the service in some other areas.

Text and an illustration from "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" are displayed on an iPad, Sept. 30, 2015, in New York. U.S. Internet connection speeds have tripled over 3-1/2 years to keep up with consumer demands for streaming video and downloading content but the United States still lags many other countries.​

The FCC says video accounts for more than 60 percent of U.S. Internet traffic, a figure that may rise to 80 percent by 2019. Still, the United States only ranks 25 out of 39 nations in 2013, according to the FCC. It said the United States was behind many countries including France, Canada, Germany and Japan -- but ahead of Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Israel. The fastest was Luxembourg with average download speeds of 47.32 Mbps. The report said that among major providers, Cablevision Systems Corp. led with average download speeds of 60 Mbps, followed by Verizon Communications Inc and Charter Communications Inc each with around 50 Mbps. Cox Communications Inc followed at 40 Mbps, while Comcast was about 35 Mbps.

In January, the FCC redefined benchmark broadband speeds to 25 Mbps for downloads, up from the 4 Mbps set in 2010. "Advances in network technology are yielding significant improvements in broadband speeds and quality," FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said in a statement. "Faster, better broadband will unleash new innovations and new services to improve the lives of the American people." The report, Wheeler said, holds Internet providers "accountable." Among U.S. states, New Jersey had the fastest average Internet download speeds at 57 Mbps, while Idaho had the lowest at about 14 Mbps, just above Ohio and Arkansas. The FCC measures Internet performance with monitoring boxes in more than 5,000 volunteer homes. The FCC says download speeds are now much closer to advertised than in 2011.

US Says Its Internet Speeds Tripled in 3.5 Years

 

[waltky]

Hackers keep tryin' to hack into Missile Defense Agency and its key weapons programs...

US Official: Cyberattacks as Much of a Threat as Iranian, N. Korean ICBMs
April 14, 2016 | WASHINGTON — Constant cyberattacks on the U.S. Missile Defense Agency and its key weapons programs pose as great a threat as development of intercontinental ballistic missiles by Iran and North Korea, the admiral who heads the agency said Thursday.

Vice Admiral James Syring told a House Armed Services subcommittee that the agency had taken "inordinate" measures to defend its own networks, but he remained concerned about potential vulnerabilities among defense contractors. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency develops and runs a multilayered system of defenses against ballistic missile attacks by potential enemies. The system includes ground-based interceptor missiles in Alaska and California as well as high-end radar equipment to detect attacks.

Syring said that the agency carried out continuous monitoring of its classified and unclassified networks, but that cyberattacks were increasingly directed against private contractors and unclassified, controlled technical information that they housed on their networks. "What we've got to do is get them up to where we are in terms of our protection levels, and I view it as a very near-term, very real requirement across the [Ballistic Missile Defense System]," he said. U.S. defense officials have been increasingly vocal about escalating and constant cyberattacks originating from China, Russia and other countries.

Syring did not answer directly when asked about his knowledge of attacks on the agency's networks by China or the Chinese military, telling lawmakers he would provide fuller answers during a classified hearing. Syring told a similar Senate hearing on Wednesday that the agency was working "hand in glove" with private contractors to ensure that future contracts contained the necessary cybersecurity requirements, protections and standards.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work told Reuters this week that the Pentagon's Cyber Investment Management Board had prepared a list of top-priority weapons programs that required cybersecurity updates and investments. He said that the details were classified, but that some of those programs were launched years ago, before cyberattacks became commonplace.

US Official: Cyberattacks as Much of a Threat as Iranian, N. Korean ICBMs

 

[waltky]

Cyber Attacks Prompt New threat levels...

US: 'Revolution' of Cyber Attacks Prompts New Protection Efforts
July 26, 2016 - White House sets threat levels to determine appropriate government response

The U.S. warned Tuesday of a "revolution" of computer hacking threats against the country from foreign governments and non-state actors like the so-called Islamic State, and it issued new guidelines to protect American interests. A White House directive outlined a five-point scale to assess the severity of new attacks, the degree to which a cyber security breach might affect national government operations, municipal utilities, private corporations or other U.S. interests.

The new effort, years in the making, would assign six levels of severity to any breach, such as a level three or above incident that would be considered "significant" and trigger quick government action. The worst-case scenario was seen as one that would pose an imminent threat to wide-scale critical infrastructure in the country, the stability of the government or lives of Americans. "To put it bluntly, we are in the midst of a revolution of the cyber threat, one that is growing more persistent, more diverse, more frequent and more dangerous every day," White House counter-terrorism adviser Lisa Monaco told a cyber security conference in New York. "Unless we act together - government, industry and citizens - we risk a world where malicious cyber activity could threaten our security and prosperity," she said. "That is not a future we should accept."

A specialist works at the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center in Arlington, Va.​

Monaco named Russia and China as cyber adversaries, while also noting that Iran and North Korea are capable and willing to carry out destructive attacks, as well as "hacktivists" who are not necessarily aligned with a foreign interest. The new directive comes as U.S. Democratic Party officials are claiming that "Russian state actors" hacked into nearly 20,000 emails at the party's Washington headquarters. The messages, released last weekend by WikiLeaks, showed that party leaders undermined the presidential campaign of an upstart challenger, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, in his long and eventually unsuccessful contest against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the party's nominee in the November national election.

Monaco said there will be a thorough investigation of the Democratic Party security breach "and I'm sure there will be more to say later." The FBI is looking into the cyber attack, but Moscow on Tuesday rejected any contention that it was involved.

#US worried about 'revolution' in cyber attacks, sets new responses depending on the severity

 

[waltky]

Army lookin' for a few good geeks...

Army Wants Soldiers Trained to Fight Through Cyberattack
Oct 03, 2016 | U.S. Army modernization officials said Monday that the service must start training soldiers to survive a cyberattack on the battlefield.

"We must be able to understand what can happen to our systems through a cyberattack, and what is the enemy's capability and how do we counter that," Gen. Gustave "Gus" Perna, commander of Army Materiel Command, told an audience at the Association the United States Army's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. "We need to face that with some stark reality, and we better do it quickly or we are going to have systems on the battlefield that we are not going to be able to operate despite the supply chain or the training of our soldiers." Perna took part in a forum with government and industry officials to discuss modernization as it relates to the threat of potential, near-peer enemies.

The US Army's cyber operations at Fort Gordon, Ga., will soon include a new headquarters building and control facility.​

Katharina McFarland, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisitions, logistics and technology, echoed Perna's concern, that the service needs to provide soldiers with the confidence to know how to fight through a cyberattack. "We are going to have to teach them how to deal with a cyberattack," McFarland said. "How do you think in the time of austerity, in the time of war, to have that speed to know what to do; to be able to maintain the most important capability that you need to have? "Cyber is not the same as having a big gaping hole in the side of your aircraft," she said. "It's a big deal; they have to have the confidence to know how to come out on the other end."

McFarland, who succeeded Heidi Shyu in the Army's top acquisition post in February, plans to retire Nov. 1, citing medical reasons, Politico reported. The Army is not alone in its concern. Other services are widening their focus on how to prepare their personnel and weapon systems to deal with cyberattacks from potential adversaries such as Russia. The commander of Air Force Materiel Command recently laid out the service's plan for ensuring attack aircraft and other weapon systems are secure from cyberattack. In January 2015, the service established the Cyber Resiliency Steering Group and developed a lengthy plan of attack to ensure weapon systems are cybersecure, said Air Force Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski.

Army Wants Soldiers Trained to Fight Through Cyberattack | Military.com

 

[waltky]

Wonder if this has anything to do with what's goin' on in the South China Sea?...

Cyber-attack Exposes Sensitive Data on Over 134,000 U.S. Sailors
November 24, 2016 - The U.S. Navy said hackers have gained access to the Social Security numbers and other sensitive information of more than 134,000 current and former U.S. sailors.

The data breach occurred after a hackers compromised the laptop of an employee of Navy contractor Hewlett Packard Enterprise. In a statement released Wednesday, the Navy said the information was accessed by "unknown individuals" and that an investigation is underway to identify and help those whose information was exposed. The information was taken from what is known as the Career Appoints database, which is used to submit re-enlistment and and occupation requests. The statement said there was no evidence of "misuse" of the of the compromised information.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise informed the Navy of the breach on October 27. This is the latest in a string of data breaches in the U.S. this year. In a report issued November 22 by the Identify Theft Resource Center, 901 breaches occurred in 2016, exposing the records of more than 34 million people. [[ http://www.idtheftcenter.org/images/breach/DataBreachReport_2016.pdf ]] The breaches occurred in the government, financial, business, educational and healthcare sectors. The largest number of breaches occurred in the business sector, the target of 397 breaches that exposed records on more than 5.5 million people.

Hackers hit Navy personnel records​

There were 61 cyber-attacks in the government/military sector, compromising the records of 12.9 million people. Despite the large number of data breaches this year, none compare to the worst-ever data breach of U.S. federal government records. In 2015, the security clearance applications and other sensitive information of some 21.5 million people were compromised. By comparison, the largest data breach this year occurred when hackers attacked the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement - exposing the records of 5 million people.

Rounding out the top five data breaches this year are the following:

* Banner Health (a non-profit health health system): 3.623 million records exposed
* Newkirk Products (a provider of healthcare identification cards for health insurance plans): 3.466 million records exposed
* Washington Department of Fishing & Wildlife (a Washington state wildlife protection agency): 2.435 records exposed
* 21st Century Oncology (a provider of integrated cancer care services): 2.213 records exposed

Cyber-attack Exposes Sensitive Data on Over 134,000 U.S. Sailors

 

[waltky]

Granny believes dem Chinamens did it...

With Paper, Phones, Atlanta Struggles to Recover From Cyberattack
March 31, 2018 — Atlanta's top officials holed up in their offices on Saturday as they worked to restore critical systems knocked out by a nine-day-old cyberattack that
plunged the Southeastern U.S. metropolis into technological chaos and forced some city workers to revert to paper.

On an Easter and Passover holiday weekend, city officials labored in preparation for the workweek to come. Police and other public servants have spent the past week trying to piece together their digital work lives, re-creating audit spreadsheets and conducting business on mobile phones in response to one of the most devastating "ransomware" virus attacks to hit an American city. Three city council staffers have been sharing a single clunky personal laptop brought in after cyber extortionists attacked Atlanta's computer network with a virus that scrambled data and still prevents access to critical systems. "It's extraordinarily frustrating," said Councilman Howard Shook, whose office lost 16 years of digital records.

A view of Atlanta's City Hall, in Atlanta, Georgia​

One compromised city computer seen by Reuters showed multiple corrupted documents with "weapologize" and "imsorry" added to file names. Ransomware attacks have surged in recent years as cyberextortionists moved from attacking individual computers to large organizations, including businesses, health care organizations and government agencies. Previous high-profile attacks have shut down factories, prompted hospitals to turn away patients and forced local emergency dispatch systems to move to manual operations.

Not theft, usually

Ransomware typically corrupts data and does not steal it. The city of Atlanta has said it does not believe private residents' information is in the hands of hackers, but they do not know for sure. City officials have declined to discuss the extent of damage beyond disclosed outages that have shut down some services at municipal offices, including courts and the water department. Nearly 6 million people live in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Georgia city itself is home to more than 450,000 people, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. City officials told Reuters that police files and financial documents were rendered inaccessible by unknown hackers who demanded $51,000 worth of bitcoin to provide digital keys to unlock scrambled files. "Everything on my hard drive is gone," City Auditor Amanda Noble said in her office housed in Atlanta City Hall.

City officials have not disclosed the extent to which servers for backing up information on PCs were corrupted or what kind of information they think is unrecoverable without paying the ransom. Noble discovered the disarray on March 22 when she turned on her computer to discover that files could not be opened after being encrypted by a powerful computer virus known as SamSam that renamed them with gibberish. City officials then quickly entered her office and told her to shut down the computer before warning the rest of the building. Noble is working on a personal laptop and using her smartphone to search for details of current projects mentioned in emails stored on that device. Not all computers were compromised. Ten of 18 machines in the auditing office were not affected, Noble said.

Old-school analog