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Government Security The Military United States

NBC Report: Russian Hackers Behind Attack On Pentagon Mail System 81

Posted by timothy from the they-were-just-drawn-to-the-shape dept.
New submitter packetspike alerts us to a story at CNBC, according to which U.S. officials have told NBC News that Russian hackers are behind a "sophisticated cyberattack" against the unclassified email system used by the Pentagon's Joint Staff , which has since been shut down and taken off line. "According to the officials, the "sophisticated cyber intrusion" occurred sometime around July 25 and affected some 4,000 military and civilian personnel work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff." The story claims that it's unclear whether the mail-system's attackers were backed by the Russian government. (Expect more to come on this story.)
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NBC Report: Russian Hackers Behind Attack On Pentagon Mail System More

NBC Report: Russian Hackers Behind Attack On Pentagon Mail System

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  • "sources," eh? "US officials" you say? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by r-diddly ( 4140775 ) on Thursday August 06, 2015 @03:58PM (#50265005)
    On the one hand, this type of attack happens all the time and is entirely plausible. On the other hand, the US continues to try to antagonize Russia and propagandize US citizens, and unnamed sources don't exactly speak well for journalistic quality.

    • Re:"sources," eh? "US officials" you say? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by TWX ( 665546 ) on Thursday August 06, 2015 @04:09PM (#50265085)
      Russia has been in an antagonistic relationship with "The West" for hundreds of years. For a time it was France. For a time it was the United Kingdom. For a time it was the Nordic countries. This current round of antagonism goes back to WWII and Russia getting the crap beat out of it by Germany before the US and the UK opened a second front.

      Foreign leaders often end up as propaganda. In my relatively short time on this earth I've seen Arafat, Papa Doc, Manuel Noriega, Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, and probably others that I can't remember used by the media to drive ratings. If you randomly sampled Americans you'd probably find they only know Hussein, but it took two wars and a long occupation for that connection to be made.

      Vladimir Putin will probably be just as forgotten to Americans as most of the rest of these men.

      • Re:"sources," eh? "US officials" you say? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Princeofcups ( 150855 ) <john@princeofcups.com> on Thursday August 06, 2015 @04:48PM (#50265341) Homepage

        This current round of antagonism goes back to WWII and Russia getting the crap beat out of it by Germany before the US and the UK opened a second front.

        And you complain about THEM believing the propaganda? We may have helped the war in Eastern Europe end sooner, but after summer 1943, the eventual victor was never in doubt.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by TWX ( 665546 )
          Never the less, Stalin was very, very angry with the United States and with the United Kingdom as his country lost territory and people to the Germans while he perceived the US and UK as not helping with the war itself. He was also very angry that technical assistance to the Soviet Union was limited; heavy bombers and other large war machines were not sent to the Soviet Union.

          In some ways I can't really blame the West. Stalin played realpolitik with the Germans to try to gain territory located between

          • He was also very angry that technical assistance to the Soviet Union was limited; heavy bombers and other large war machines were not sent to the Soviet Union.

            A couple of things:

            The USA sent more tanks to the USSR than they did to the UK.

            Oddly, even though the USSR built an enormous number of reasonably well-designed tanks (T-34/76 had some really superior features, as well as a couple of really sucky ones, such as the commander having to load the gun, T-34/85 fixed most of those problems, but introduce

            • Not to mention that heavy bombing was the ONLY real way we had to prosecute the war in a way that directly affected Germany in the early part of the war (while the eastern front was an ideal tank battleground). As a matter of fact, both the UK and US suffered appalling losses attempting to do this - especially the US with their insistence on daylight precision raids. Being in a bomber crew was far riskier than being an infantryman in WWII.

              Certainly Russia suffered the most among the "big four" victors, an

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by Xest ( 935314 )

            "Never the less, Stalin was very, very angry with the United States and with the United Kingdom as his country lost territory and people to the Germans while he perceived the US and UK as not helping with the war itself. He was also very angry that technical assistance to the Soviet Union was limited; heavy bombers and other large war machines were not sent to the Soviet Union. "

            Um, no:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

            The USSR received a phenomenal amount of support from Bri

      • I certainly hope you are right about Putin being forgoten in years. Because of his Ukraine shenanigans, there is still a chance for WWIII to break out; NATO is required to respond if there is a full invasion and that would be far from good. People are worried about ISIS when maybe they should be more worried about our old Cold War rival moreso. I just hope Putin isn't truly as loose of a canon as he seems to be.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by TWX ( 665546 )
          How many people know who Nikita Khrushchev is? He put nuclear missiles in Cuba and addressed the UN literally stating that he would bury the West. Putin is no Khrushchev.

          • but didn't the US put missiles in Turkey? ....Kind of seems.. fair doesn't it?

          • ICBW, but my understanding is that he was referring to an old Russian saying and that what he meant by that was that the Soviets would outlive the West. (That's why they'd be burying us; we'd have died out and there wouldn't be anybody else left to bury what was left.)

            And, Khrushchev had nothing but praise for the Lend/Lease equipment that the US supplied via the Murmansk Run and across the Pacific. (After Pearl Harbor, of course, it was all shipped on Soviet freighters because the Japanese were very, v

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by qpqp ( 1969898 )

          NATO is required to respond if there is a full invasion and that would be far from good

          And why would that be exactly? Care to explain?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ScentCone ( 795499 )

      On the other hand, the US continues to try to antagonize Russia

      It's true. Russia normally wouldn't feel the need to roll tanks into and kill people in Ukraine, but they just can't help it. They're so stressed out over being antagonized. Luckily for us, we had a stellar person as our nation's top diplomat, and she had a big red plastic "reset" button that she brought with her to Russia to make everything better. And if the Russians DID hack into DoD mail servers, at least we know they could never have hacked into her mail server, in her house ... because, she knows a g

  • Joe Isuzu (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Russian... because it's America's newest great satan.

    Sophisticated... because no script kid could poke through very smart protections.

    Broklyn Bridge... because I can sell it to you for a very good price.

  • We see facts to back their position. In fairness, I did not read TFA or do any of my own research on this _yet_. That said, I have seen so many lies from so many politicians and department heads that I simply refuse to believe anything they say any longer. I'd give you the list of known liars but it is probably shorter to list the people I do trust holding a Government position (appointed or elected).

    1.

    Wow, that was easy!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Vokkyt ( 739289 )

      I'd say you should read the article, but then you'd post complaining I owe you 20 seconds of your time back.

      The article is incredibly shallow and leaves absolutely everything to be desired. There are no details on the attack, no explanation as to why government officials think it's Russia. In fact, as the result of either a confused spokesperson or poor journalism (both?), the article isn't even clear if the Government thinks it's government sanctioned or not.

      The officials say its not clear whether the attack was sanctioned by the Russian government or conducted by individuals. But, given the scope of the attack, "It was clearly the work of a state actor," the officials say.[entire quote sic]

      The article just lacks any substance whatsoever

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by s.petry ( 762400 )

        Nah, if I post I deserve to take some heat for not reading TFA. I did go read the article after I posted and had to laugh. As you point out very well there are zero facts, no evidence, nothing that I can see other than a wild accusation about using encrypted social media accounts.

        That last one did give me quite a chuckle though.

      • We still are waiting on the "evidence" that it was China behind the OPM hack. I doubt we'll get anything clearer here.

        • We still are waiting on the "evidence" that it was China behind the OPM hack. I doubt we'll get anything clearer here.

          Inspector general Patrick E. McFarland said that OPM’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, or OCIO, has “hindered and interfered with” his office’s oversight and “has created an environment of mistrust by providing my office with incorrect and/or misleading information.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]

  • Yea sure (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Yea sure they are. The media is doing anything they can to provoke justification for a war with Russia. I don't believe a word of what comes out of corporate media. I'd be surprised if there was ever a hack at all.
    http://youtu.be/4tTMMNTisBM

  • The Pentagon should just switch to using Hillary's mail server . . . it is the most secure mail server in the world . . . because Hillary said so!

  • We always hear about all these hacks on the US, but have you ever wondered how many times the US has successfully hacked these other countries? Never really thought about it until now.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The US and GB have the internet pretty much tapped. The don't really need to hack into other countries' systems.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Re:these other countries?
      The US and UK "are" the networks in other nations. The crypto standards for interconnects, telco equipment, low peering costs and distant pipes.
      When a few nations have methods like Quantum Insert http://www.wired.com/2015/04/r... [wired.com] no traditional ip trail exists
      Some data about ip, time zone, data storage is found, its probably not the nation of origin anymore with todays more creative data moving methods.

      As for some "sophisticated cyber intrusion" been able to "rapidly [gather]

  • Exremely uncredible source (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Not 1 citation or 1 bit of concrete proof it was Russia

    The Rothschild controlled boogeymen will say anything in their western owned media

    For all we know it was a Mr. Robot type

  • Watch Clinton's email be totally unaffected and more secure :)

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