Monday, February 11, 2013

U.S. said to be target of massive cyber-espionage campaign

The Volokh Conspiracy sends us this disturbing post:
Once again, Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post has broken a cybersecurity story:
The two events are tied together by something Steve Chabinsky said during the panel discussion: We’re used to the idea that cybersecurity is an arms race, with defense chasing offense and vice versa, and that the US and its adversaries are constantly trying to counter the other’s tactics.  What we haven’t absorbed is how quickly proliferation occurs.  
Once a nation has found a tool that overtops America’s national security defenses, the tool will only work for a while.  Eventually its thrust will be parried by the Defense Department. At that point, the code isn’t good for its original purpose, but it’s still plenty good for breaking into private networks, and it will keep working until a good defensive tactic has spread across the entire Internet.

Here is the story referred to above:
washingtonpost.com  "A new intelligence assessment has concluded that the United States is the target of a massive, sustained cyber-espionage campaign that is threatening the country’s economic competitiveness, according to individuals familiar with the report.
"The National Intelligence Estimate identifies China as the country most aggressively seeking to penetrate the computer systems of American businesses and institutions to gain access to data that could be used for economic gain."
 

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