Richard Koman has a sobering review of recent security breaches of the Obama and McCain campaigns’ computer systems as well as the White House computer system. Apparently, these were non-trivial and systematic attacks perpetrated by China an unnamed country.
With cyber-attacks becoming a routine part of international espionage and general mischief-making, it’s an area that should receive substantially more attention than it’s obviously received to date.
Update
More on the White House security breach(es) from the Financial Times:
Chinese hackers have penetrated the White House computer network on multiple occasions, and obtained e-mails between government officials, a senior US official told the Financial Times.
On each occasion, the cyber attackers accessed the White House computer system for brief periods, allowing them enough time to steal information before US computer experts patched the system.
US government cyber intelligence experts suspect the attacks were sponsored by the Chinese government because of their targeted nature. But they concede that it is extremely difficult to trace the exact source of an attack beyond a server in a particular country.
“We are getting very targeted Chinese attacks so it stretches credulity that these are not directed by government-related organisations,” said the official.
The official said the Chinese cyber attacks had the hallmarks of the “grain of sands” approach taken by Chinese intelligence, which involves obtaining and pouring through lots of – often low-level – information to find a few nuggets.
The article goes on to point out that only the unclassified computer system has been breached, not the classified one. And, of course, all U. S. officials are perfectly compliant in only using putting sensitive information out on the secured, classified computer system.
