Posted on 11/20/2008 4:43:58 PM PST by Sammy67
Edited on 11/20/2008 4:48:23 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Thursday, November 20, 2008 The Pentagon has suffered from a cyber attack so alarming that it has taken the unprecedented step of banning the use of external hardware devices, such as flash drives and DVD's, FOX News has learned.
The attack came in the form of a global virus or worm that is spreading rapidly throughout a number of military networks.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
No, DoD should not move toward Macs. We used them in my area for a few years and got rid of them by the end of 2004. I can dispel the myth that Macs don’t crash, we used OSX and it was the biggest piece of crap ever. Performance was terrible and applications would freeze all over the place.
I don’t know where you’re getting the idea that DoD is moving toward Apple, that isn’t true at all. All new computers are loaded with Vista. They’d be better loading legacy Win XP, but you can’t buy it anymore.
Ping
From the article you posted...
"Sami Saydjari, who has been working on cyber defence systems for the Pentagon since the 1980s, told Congress in testimony on April 25 that a mass cyber attack could leave 70 per cent of the US without electrical power for six months." "He told The Times that all major nations – including China – were scrambling to defend against, and working out ways to cause, “maximum strategic damage” by taking out banking systems, power grids and communications networks. He said that there were at least a thousand attempted attacks every hour on American computers. “China is aggressive in this,” he said. "
THAT was funny. I run Parallels on my Mac, and I felt like I was loading a virus when I installed Windows....
Be careful Ma I think that’s what started the last one.....
bttt
The U.S. government should publicly acknowledge
that China is the top spy threat to the
United States and ban its microchips and associated hardware.
Naw, don't need to replace the hardware, just the OS. Windows is not a very good description for a secure defense agency.
I hear the NSA puts out a locked down version of Linux. And It would be free. We could save money by not having to license winders from redmond.
ping
It’s probably Skynet - cue music for “Terminator - The Sarah Palin Chronicles.”
You might as well laugh, nothing else seems to help.
As for the DoD I think they should switch to Linux.
In reality, the U.S. military shouldn’t be using any operating system or programs that are produced by any company whose employees (or at least programmers) aren’t 100% vetted and security cleared, and who take an oath of loyalty. And that will only reduce the risk of the inevitable.
I haven’t looked into the “Easter Egg” stuff in Windows lately. Anyone care to tell about the stupid stuff like that in Windows that eats up our computer resources? Not to mention security flaws...
My first thought was that it would be so easy to ‘take’ information out of the workplace on them. They would have to do a full search on people to find them.
I’m surprised they would be allowed at all in any government office.
If you ban the use of hardware and DVD/CDs from outside the network, then you have a little better control over what data goes out the door and what material comes in.
Our systems at DHS/ICE are prevented from going to Facebook, Myspace and any of the other social networking sites, as well as mass storage sites (Flickr, Picasa are two of the examples). We issue encrypted thumb drives with the express understanding that the only equipment they connect to is GFE (government furnished equipment), but aside from someone’s word of honor, how do you keep them from plugging them in at home? If our investigators need to get to any locked out site, then there’s a process to follow, and then one system at the facility is designated to be able to penetrate to that site - and is prevented from accessing the rest of our internal network.
Ah ok. I can understand that. We have yet to ban USB drives. Doubt it will happen, though, because of info isn’t even close to national security level. LOL.
Actually, I was being dead serious. I can't tell you how much money my company lost when the latest big windows worm crippled our network.
I run Parallels on my Mac, and I felt like I was loading a virus when I installed Windows....
Thats because you were. :-)
I use Linux exclusively on bare metal. When I must run MS-Windows, I run it in vmware, preferrably with host-only networking, so it can't do any harm.
So that’s why we can’t plug our flash drives, digital cameras, etc, to our computers. They have put a serious crimp in our work because we can’t use our external equipment like we used to. We now have to download our images, videos, etc, to a computer not on a network, burn them to a CD/DVD and then copy them to a networked computer.
In most secure area’s I worked in windows were usually banned, of course, most of the places were located in the basement, so there was nothing to see even if they put windows into the basement walls.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.