Five Hacks That Will Challenge Obamas Cyber-security Plans

by Brian Prince

Hackers took advantage of network vulnerabilities of contractors involved in the development of the Pentagon’s $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter project to get their hands on project data. U.S. military officials said they traced the penetration back with a high degree of certainty to known Chinese IP addresses, though the Chinese government denies any role in the attacks.

A day after Obama ordered the 60-day review, the Federal Aviation Administration reported that hackers accessed an agency server and stole employee information. According to officials, two of the 48 files on the breached computer contained personal information for more than 45,000 FAA employees and retirees who were on the FAA’s rolls as of the first week of February 2006.

In April, news surfaced that hackers had planted malware on the U.S. power grid. Many of the intrusions were reportedly not detected by the companies running the grid, but by U.S. intelligence agencies.

The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Swedish national Philip Gabriel Pettersson May 5 on charges of hacking into Cisco Systems’ network in 2004 and swiping Cisco Internetwork Operating System code and then breaking into computers at the Ames Research Center and the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division, located at Moffett Field, Calif.

On May 22, officials at the U.S. Marshals Service confirmed its systems were infected by the Neeris virus. At the same time, the FBI confirmed it was experiencing problems with e-mail, but did not disclose additional details.