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Russian Attacks on Pentagon (and Texas)
-- Ender Wiggin, Editor
"Russian hackers are the best there are," said a senior Russian official in an interview with CNN. According to sources within the Pentagon and NSA, recent expert attacks against the Pentagon have been traced back to Russia.
The attacks on Pentagon systems, reminicent of the Cuckoo's Egg (visit our bookstore for this title and others), seem to be originating from seven locations in Russia. Russian officials promise to investigate and prosecute any hackers attempting to breach US Military computers.
Reports of attacks against Pentagon computers follows closely behind allegations that hackers hijacked a British satellite. Since the satellite story, Reuters and the BBC have retracted that story.
"The attacks are monotonous and routine," said a source inside the Pentagon. According to what we've heard on CNN, and what we've learned ourselves, it would appear that the attackers are working in several areas -- particularly common passwords. If these crackers are simply trying common passwords they aren't much of a threat to the Pentagon.
The US Military is reacting strongly, however. They briefed a House committee about the problem last week and have almost doubled the number of military personnel monitoring secure systems as of two days ago. In addition, they've added monitoring systems to most nodes and other machines -- making it difficult to make a stealth attack.
The quality of these attacks seems to be more than simply common password entry. Why? An unnamed source interviewed by CNN said that there are thousands of attacks against the Pentagon on a regular basis. For that reason, these attacks must be unique in some aspect.
It's our belief that they're trying an attack that has worked in the past constantly, looking for more vulnerable systems. If an exploit worked in one ‘secure' location, they're probably hoping that the vulnerability will exist on other, more important computers as well.
What about the Russian connection, however? That's probably why the US Military is so concerned. The Russian KGB is not dead, it simply exists under another name. The Komitet Gossodusvennoy Bezopasnoti once conducted foreign intelligence under the First Chief Directorate. The First Chief Directorate has now become the FIS or Foreign Intelligence Service.
According to many experts on the subject, including Amy Knight, author of Spies Without Cloaks: The KGB's Successors, the FIS remains very active. If they have refocused their energy on computers as so many others have, it's quite possible that they have launched this most recent round of attacks against the Pentagon.
The KGB was behind the legendary attacks portrayed in The Cuckoo's Egg, and it seems quite possible they are behind this latest round of attacks. This, more than anything else, is the likely reason the American reaction has been so strong.
There is no reason why another set of attacks against the Pentagon computers should be a noteworthy event -- certainly no reason why it should merit a House committee briefing... unless there's a new, foreign wrinkle to the problem of computer security.
OSAll tried to reach the offices of several congressmen today but failed to get through. We will continue to try to reach them for comment.
Postscript:
The Pentagon has since announced that the ‘attacks' were nothing more than users of NMAP. Is this true? Well... The congressman who spoke with CNN and AntiOnline shouldn't have done so, according to sources inside his office. The information he released to the public was confidential -- the Pentagon didn't want everyone to know it was under attack... So, is this damage control? It's possible. |
