How Did We Miss the World's Largest Cyber Attack?

[The Straight Story]

How Did We Miss the World's Largest Cyber Attack?


For the past five years, hackers have been infiltrating the networks of some of the world's largest and most influential organizations, and security consultants just noticed. Revealed by software security firm McAfee at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas this week, the scale of "Operation Shady RAT"--a code name referring to a remote access tool used to break into networks--makes it somewhat shocking that a government agency didn't spot the attack sooner. Hackers targeted the United Nations, the International Olympic Committee, the World Anti-Doping Agency as well as several governments and American corporations. In fact, out of the total 72 organizations targeted, 49 are based in the United States. McAfee suspects that it's another government that's been doing the hacking, and experts say signs point to China.

So why didn't we spot this sooner? The quick answer is that we did, but it was kept a secret. With the Pentagon hurriedly expanding operations online and declaring the internet a war zone, the government is not unaware of the dangers of cyber attacks. In fact, the NSA, Defense Department and a number of other governmental bodies are attempting to recruit hackers at the Black Hat conference and its sister convention DefCon. But the escalation of attention paid to cyber security has only really picked up in the past year while the attacks started in 2006. There are some competing but overlapping theories on why we missed the series of attacks since then.

We've been distracted by the inconsequential breaches by Anonymous. McAfee's vice president of threat research Dmitri Alperovitch thinks that some of cyber security resources have been misplaced with the past year's string of attacks from the hacktivists affiliated with Anonymous and spinoff group LulzSec. "it’s been really hard to watch the news of this Anonymous and LulzSec stuff, because most of what they do, defacing Web sites and running denial-of-service attacks, is not serious," Alperovitch told Vanity Fair, who broke the story about the attacks. "It’s really just nuisance."

China, if culpable, is damn good at hacking. Mike Lennon at Securityweek points to a 2010 report that claims China is engaging in "the single largest, most intensive foreign intelligence gathering effort since the Cold War." Lennon writes, "China is investing in the resources needed for 'building an informationalized force and winning an informationalized war,' including a 1,100 person cyber operation with a submarine cave entrance worthy of a James Bond film, all hidden beneath the white sands and villages of Hainan Island, a popular tourist destination." If indeed China's the source of the attack--and almost everyone thinks it was--it's possible that we were just outgunned.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/08/how-did-us-miss-worlds-largest-cyber-attack/40762/

[valerief]

1. So what the the attackers do and what does this mean? nt

[WingDinger]

2. They hacked the World Bank for two years. Know every Nations balance of payments etc.

All economic info compromised. That is likely why we were Paulsoned. They paid off Chinese and others that threatened to reveal all.