Military and Intelligence Attacks
Although the military is notoriously tight-lipped about successful IT attacks, the winter of 2008 saw a noteworthy attack perpetrated against the Pentagon. These attacks typically garner little attention as they answer to some 800 plus attacks every year. Everyone began to take notice late in November when the Defense Department banned use of all external memory devices used within the massive network.
The worm was reportedly spread when a US Navy staff member lost classified information after inserting a flash drive infected with the global virus. Fifteen hundred computers had to be shut down immediately to avoid spreading the worm further.
The attack thought to be Chinese or Russian in origin quickly spread throughout the network even affecting computers in combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan along with US Central Command. US Strategic Command’s Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations Col. Gary McAlum was quoted, “China is aggressively pursuing cyber warfare capabilities that may provide it with an asymmetric advantage against the United States.
In a conflict situation, this advantage would reduce current US conventional military dominance.” One unspecified Navy admiral described the attack as “widespread and severe.” The culprit is now known to be Worm: W32/Agent.BTZ virus. The Pentagon then enacted measures to confiscate all flash drives, expansion hard drives, and DVDs which might carry the worm. Some computer experts have reported that agent.btz can allow an attacker to take control of a computer remotely and remove files and information. The Pentagon has not specifically outlined what threat agent.btz presents, but one can infer that the quick action to ban external memory devices altogether is very telling.
