Posted on 03/09/2010 12:42:45 AM PST by tlb
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A message that North Korea had conducted a nuclear attack on the Japanese island of Okinawa turned out to be false, but the fact it was delivered via U.S. military communications has prompted a high alert, according to U.S. officials who asked to remain anonymous.
U.S. military channels were hacked either by the Chinese or North Koreans, the source said. Access to such communications – even unclassified military systems – suggests a serious breach of technology security.
"Today, March 06, 2010 at 11.46 AM local time (UTC/GMT -5 hours),US seismographic stations recorded seismic activity in the area of Okinawa Island (Japan). According to (sic) National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Democratic People's Republic of Korea has carried out an average range missile attack with use of nuclear warhead (sic). The explosion caused severe destructions (sic) in the northern part of the (sic) Okinawa island. Casualties among the personnel of the US military base are being estimated at the moment."
Only a few months ago, there were reports that a powerful cyber attack overwhelmed computers at U.S. government agencies and South Korean agencies for several days. The report said the attacks also targeted the White House, Pentagon and the New York Stock Exchange.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
I read somewhere else that this was a phishing attempt geared towards DoD and government personnel, there was never a “high alert”, the IT people figured it out right away.
Not fun. North Korea has become a problem for China, and they cannot act directly without losing face. However, if they trick the US into erasing North Korea, they are blameless. In fact, they could claim the moral high ground even with some significant retaliatory acts, all while ridding themselves of their problem.
This was not a joke, it was potentially deadly serious. With an idiot such as zero in the White House, it very well could have worked. My guess is that obama wasn’t even told until the hack was verified as such.
And Obama wants to surrender the Internet to the UN.
My computer was unusually sluggish late this evening. I was not on earlier. Could these be because those 2 Chinese universities are messing with our computers again? Anyone else notice this problem tonight?
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/pentagon-hit-by-fake-e-mails-on-north-korean-missile/19387718
“Pentagon Hit by Fake E-mails on ‘North Korean Missile’”
Updated: 14 hours 51 minutes ago
SNIPPET: “(March 8) — The Pentagon warned its employees over the weekend of a new threat to its cyber security: e-mails that look like they were sent by the U.S. government but weren’t.
Calling it an attempt at “cyber exploitation,” officials urged Defense Department employees against clicking on links in e-mails from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence with the subject line “DPRK has carried out nuclear missile attack on Japan.” Employees who had been duped by the message were told to cease using their computers and contact the help desk.”
So exactly how did this message get fed into our supposedly secure network?
Gack. The mailers for reading secure and external emails shouldn’t even be on the same computer.
Don’t we have satellites watching the area? No boom, no flash, no attack. I wouldn’t trust an email message.
Sorry for the miffed post
You would think if they were going to all the trouble of hacking a fake nuke attack they could at least find someone who spoke English well enough to make it look good.
It was email. From the WWW. Very insecure. The senders know that some people will believe anything in an email, so they will click on the links.
My company had an idiot network security analyst, who few people had ever heard of before, send an email to all of our corporate security people asking for feedback on phishing attempts. Most of our security people, being halfway trained, reported the email as a phishing attempt, through proper channels.
China is coordinating with Iran:
when the balloon goes up in the Middle East, that's when China is going after Taiwan.
Cheers!
I am surprised that the Obama Administration did not surrender AT ONCE, upon receiving word of this attack report!
“How about a nice game of chess?”
“Shall we Play A game”?
Beat me by a few hrs...
Doesn't sound like it was on the secure network(SIPRNet) , but rather the plain old internet(NIPRNet). One issue would be where did they get the list of email addresses? I would think that might be where a "hack" came into play.
They aren't. They aren't even on the same physical network.
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