Military, Civilian Computers Are Breached in Security Test
WASHINGTON — A special national security team conducting a secret two-week test of the vulnerability of the nation’s computer systems successfully hacked its way into U.S. military and civilian computer networks using software found on the Internet, the Pentagon said Thursday.
Code-named “Eligible Receiver,” the cyberwar game proved what the Defense Department said it has long known: that its computers are susceptible targets, which became clear earlier this year when real hackers made a “systematic attack.”
“It found that we have a lot of work to do to provide better security,” Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said of the cyberwar game last June, which went after unclassified computer systems. “We’re not alone in this regard.”
The Pentagon plans to spend nearly $1 billion a year for the next several years to improve its classified and unclassified computer security, Bacon said, noting that the department has 2.1 million computers. Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre is shepherding a stepped-up anti-hacker program that includes a counterintelligence effort to stop intruders before they get through the electronic door, the Pentagon said.
In the cyberwar game, more than 50 National Security Agency hackers gained access to computer systems across the country, according to the Pentagon, including the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii, which oversees 100,000 troops in Asia.
The hackers also gained access to a U.S. electric power grid system that they could have sabotaged to plunge the nation into darkness, something Pentagon officials say would likely be a tactic of any real cyberwar aimed at shutting down the nation’s public works.
Some hackers posed as operatives for North Korea, and only one unit was tracked by the FBI, which works with the Pentagon to catch computer criminals.
In the most recent case of real Pentagon hacking, a teenager in Israel, nicknamed, “The Analyzer” on the Internet, is being investigated by the Israeli police for his assault on Defense Department and other computer systems earlier this year.
In February, Hamre said the Pentagon’s unclassified computers were hit by the “most organized and systematic attack” to date, targeting mostly personnel records.
