From darrenr@cyber.com.au Tue May 28 09:06:28 1996 Received: from plum.cyber.com.au (plum.cyber.com.au [203.7.155.24]) by suburbia.net (8.7.4/Proff-950810) with SMTP id JAA23478 for ; Tue, 28 May 1996 09:06:24 +1000 Received: (from darrenr@localhost) by plum.cyber.com.au (8.6.12/8.6.6) id JAA16377 for best-of-security@suburbia.net; Tue, 28 May 1996 09:06:18 +1000 From: Darren Reed Message-Id: <199605272306.JAA16377@plum.cyber.com.au> Subject: Hackers hit Pentagon computers To: best-of-security@suburbia.net Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 09:06:18 +1000 (EST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Computer hackers are invading the US Defence DEpartments computer system's every day and often cause serious damage, ther General Accounting Office has reported. The attacks - estimated at almost 250,000 last year - are successful 65% of the time and are doubling in number each year, according to the report by the auditing arm of Congress. The hackers are rarely detected or caught, it said. "Clearly, the time to think about the security of our information infrastructure is now," said Senator Sam Nunn, at a hearing of the Senate permanent subcommittee on ivestigations of which he is a member. "Just as we prepare for a conventional weapons attack, we must be ready for attacks on our computer networks," he said. Testimony at the hearing focused on the vulnerability of the Defence Department's computers. "These so-called hacker intrusions not only cost the department tens of millions of dollars, but pose a serious threat to our national security," said Jack Brock, director of the Defence Information and Financial Management Systems of the General Accounting Office. "Hackers ahve stolen and destroyed sensitive data and software. They have crashed entirenetworks, denying computer service to authorised users and preventing defence poersonnel from performing their duties," he said. Brock said that in 1994, two hackers invaded an Air Force laboratory in Rome, New York, and stole research data on air tasking orders - the messages military commands send during wartime to pilots. THey also launched other attacks from the lab's comuter systems, gaining access to systems at NASA, Wright-Patterson Air Force base near Dayton Ohio, and defence contractors around the country. The Incident cost the Government more than $500,000, not including the value of the research data that was compromised, Brock said. "No one knows what happened to the data stolen from the Rome Lab," he said. The GAO report warned that in theory, "terrorists or other adversaries could seize control of defence information systems and seriously degrade the nation's ability to deploy and sustain military forces." The Defence Department has more than 2.1 million computers, 10,000 local networks, 100 long distance networks, 200 command centres and 16 central computer processing facilities. There are more than two million defence Department computer users and another two million non-employees that do business with the department by computer. By Eunice Moscoso, NYT