Today in TechPentagon loses 24,000 classified files in massive hacking breach
The Pentagon has been taking cybersecurity a good deal more seriously lately — but a new breach could mean it's too little, too late. The news that 24,000 sensitive files had been leaked was ironically — or perhaps appropriately — revealed during a cyber strategy speech in which the military unveiled more about its aggressive new strategy for dealing with threats that aren't quite as cut and dry as those on the battlefield.
According to Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III, the documents were lifted from a defense contractor during a single hack perpetrated by "foreign intruders" in March of this year. The specific contents of the files and the origin of the intrusion were not specified, but the scope of the leak has already been dubbed "one of its worst digital attacks in history" by The New York Times. The Pentagon's ramped-up cyber security plan involves taking less of a "passive" role in cyber defense and treating the web as "an operational domain to organize, train and equip."
The strategy was no doubt drafted in response to the rash of recent national security breaches. Last month a loose conglomeration of online hackers known as Lulzsec penetrated both the U.S. Senate and the CIA, just to prove it was possible. The spate of hacks began back in April, when Sony became the target of a widely-publicized string of intrusions that exposed the private data of millions of its online customers.
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