Pentagon Admits To Losing 24,000 Files In Major Network Breach

2011 has certainly been the year of the hacker so far. The number of hacks and attacks that have been perpetrated against the US government and businesses is staggering and shows no sign of letting up. Perhaps the most disturbing of all the hacks this year was one perpetrated against the US government that the Pentagon has now admitted happened in the spring of this year. The Pentagon says that the attack was one of the most damaging to date.

The Pentagon has admitted "foreign intruders" stole 24,000 files and the files were taken from a defense contractor. The specific defense contractor that was hacked wasn't named and the nature of the files stolen was not disclosed. Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III noted at a speech to unveil the unclassified portion of the new cyber strategy for the Pentagon that over the past few years all manner of data has been stolen with some of it mundane and some of the data stolen is very disturbing.

The new cyber strategy that the Pentagon is talking about outlines ways that the military will respond to attacks and how they will train their staff to defend against the attacks. It seems that the vast majority of data theft concerning military data comes from contractors. I expect that a large part of the strategy will concern how to secure the data on outside networks.

Lynn said, "[some of the stolen data concerns] our most sensitive systems, including aircraft avionics, surveillance technologies, satellite communications systems, and network security protocols."

[via Washington Post]