Monday, October 1, 2012

Network Responsible For The U.S. Presidnet's Nuclear Football Breached By Chinese Hackers

White House Hack Attack -- Washington Free Beacon

Chinese hackers break in to White House military office network in charge of the president’s nuclear football.

Hackers linked to China’s government broke into one of the U.S. government’s most sensitive computer networks, breaching a system used by the White House Military Office for nuclear commands, according to defense and intelligence officials familiar with the incident.

One official said the cyber breach was one of Beijing’s most brazen cyber attacks against the United States and highlights a failure of the Obama administration to press China on its persistent cyber attacks.

Read more ....

My Comment: This news is startling .... for it goes to the heart of U.S. nuclear defense. But we should not be surprised by these developments .... the U.S. Cyber Command's top intelligence officer has been accusing China for the past few weeks that they have expanded their efforts to penetrate U.S. military networks and data banks .... hmmm .... it looks like they have been more successful than what we have been told. My prediction .... if these Chinese cyber attacks continue .... and the Australians are leading the way on this matter .... Chinese telecom companies will be banned from selling their equipment.

Update: White House Confirms Security Breach By Chinese Hackers (But It's Not As Bad As It Sounds) -- Business Insider

3 comments:

D.Plowman said...

Something about this article has rubbed me the wrong way. It gives no names to its sources of information, avoids any specifics, even in regards to the date of the attack and also lightly contradicts itself.

"The official said there was no impact or attempted breach of a classified system within the office."

"Security officials are investigating the breach..."

"one defense official said there is fairly solid intelligence linking the penetration of the WHMO network to China, and there are concerns that the attackers were able to breach the classified network."

Also the headline is crude, and this news isn't reported anywhere else (as far as I can see) so I would question how true it is...

War News Updates Editor said...

I also share your doubts D. Plowman. But I posted this story because of the writer Bill Gertz. He has posted some excellent breaking stories in the past, and he does have good contacts in the Pentagon.

D.Plowman said...

Well, seems the update and official response is as I said - That it wasn't that serious after all, and a lot of info in the original reporting was probably done to spruce up the report...