U.S. Commerce Department Hacked Again 164
evil agent writes "The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), a branch of the Commerce Department, has sustained several successful attacks. Chinese hackers were able to gain access to its computers and install rootkits and other malware." From the article: "This is the second major attack originating in China that's been acknowledged by the federal government since July. Then, the State Department said that Chinese attackers had broken into its systems overseas and in Washington. And last year, Britain's National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Center (NISCC) claimed that Chinese hackers had attacked more than 300 government agencies and private companies in the U.K."
How sure? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:and? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hence more secure, and not "totally secure".
Yes, it would mitigate the risk. For many government computers, thats still an unacceptable level of risk. If a buisness/government computer doesn't have good reason for internet access, it shouldn't have it. A better solution is to give those people 2 computers, one on the internet and not the internal network, the other reversed.
fight back (Score:2, Interesting)
Another fake news? (Score:4, Interesting)
Were government computers purposefully targeted? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, in the case of the Commerce Department, are these hackers "Chinese" in the sense that they represent the Chinese regime (and are thus hacking for national interests)? Or "Chinese" in the sense that they just happen to originate from that part of the world (and are thus hacking for petty selfish criminal interests)?
- Given the prevalence of hackers hacking for selfish crimes (vs. for national interests), I would think lean towards the latter.
- If the Chinese government really wanted to hack the US government, they could've picked a more useful department. Like Defense or State. But Commerce?!?!
- Attacks originating from Chinese IP addresses are extremely common, mostly because of software piracy. Because over 90% of the Windows installations there are illegal, it is common practice for software updates to be disabled (you can thank WGA for that), and thus, a HUGE number of computers in China are zombies out on a mission to zombify (is that a word?) other computers.