Newly discovered hack has U.S. fearing foreign infiltration

[Blue_Tires]

Source: CNN

Washington (CNN)A major breach at computer network company Juniper Networks has U.S. officials worried that hackers working for a foreign government were able to spy on the encrypted communications of the U.S. government and private companies for the past three years.

The FBI is investigating the breach, which involved hackers installing a back door on computer equipment, U.S. officials told CNN. Juniper disclosed the issue Thursday along with an emergency security patch that it urged customers to use to update their systems "with the highest priority."

The concern, U.S. officials said, is that sophisticated hackers who compromised the equipment could use their access to get into any company or government agency that used it. One U.S. official described it as akin to "stealing a master key to get into any government building."

The breach is believed to be the work of a foreign government, U.S. officials said, because of the sophistication involved. The U.S. officials said they are certain U.S. spy agencies themselves aren't behind the back door. China and Russia are among the top suspected governments, though officials cautioned the investigation hasn't reached conclusions.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/18/politics/juniper-networks-us-government-security-hack/index.html

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Greenwald and Snowden blah, blah blah... You know the rest...

[JimDandy]

1. Oooh, a major breach is a Friday Dump. Surprise, surprise. n/t

[bemildred]

2. Gosh, maybe putting all that important secret stuff on computers wasn't such a good idea? nt

[notadmblnd]

3. Brings back memories

of INSLAW and it's PROMIS software scandal.

[saidsimplesimon]

4. Wait a second, which is it?

Are Da'esh members using "unbreakable encryption" as we are being told by the President's administration? Is it better than our trillion dollar security boondoggles?

Juniper Networks has U.S. officials worried that hackers working for a foreign government were able to spy on the encrypted communications of the U.S. government and private companies for the past three years.

[PosterChild]

12. A breach is different from a cryptanalysis attack....

... if they were able to install software on the security systematic they would be able to snoop regardless of the strength of the encryption. For imstance, if the serve waste being used today's store the encryption keys, and they got accessdate today they keys, the leveling of encryption would not be significant.

Think office a key stroke logger secretly installed once am ipad. Regardless of them emailed emcryption, the logger would provide a record of what was typed before it was encrypted and sent.

[ilTupe]

5. Inevitable

Going to happen constantly during the rest of my life.

[LiberalArkie]

6. My guess, is someone found the NSA backdoor.

As they always do.

[Phlem]

7. Sometimes I think they say this shit

just scare people and make more money for the MIC.

Let me guess, what are we going to do about the problem? A: Well it's going to take money to yadda yadda yadda.

Like they are ever going to go public with the true details. We'll never know, but just because they said.........

It's an effing bottomless pit.

[ToxMarz]

8. Thankfully Hillary had the foresight to keep her email safely protected from the Govt inepitude

[Zorro]

9. Spy on encrypted communications?

Encrypted communications are pretty secure, so this exploit may not be as damaging as this breathless report suggests.

[PersonNumber503602]

11. Juniper says one of the holes allows them to monitor and decrypt the traffic.

The other gives remote admin access via ssh. :/

[PersonNumber503602]

10. Ohh that isn't good.

Are they giving any information out about how they believe this happened? It sounds like this isn't just a typical security bug, but rather code that was intentionally made insecure. Employee/Contractor? Hackers who broke in and modified it secretly? Aliens?