US Federal Government Suffered Massive Hacking Attack From China
- Thread starter SIR HERDERP PRESIDERP SDO
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Funky Tiger
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The U.S. has long been in a shadow war with Chinese hackers.
Generally speaking, the response by our government has been... lacking.
The main problem is that most of the people in charge of making the decisions do not understand network security or computer networks to begin with. They look at porn in their office and then act all surprised with the network admin calls them on it. They have no idea what is important.
The biggest problem the U.S. has is "big data." Because the government is involved in virtually every transaction that occurs, there is a massive amount of information that the government generates and must protect. This means a large number of people necessary to administer the various hardware and software environments (humans are always the weakest link in any security system - and an unavoidable one - the more people involved, the more risks you are taking). It also means a lot of network traffic to monitor and manage access to.
Ideally, a district manager should only have access to information within his district, and only what information is necessary for him to do his job. He should only be able to extend his abilities with a request that is logged, justified, and observed by a second party.
Of course, the more information you have, the more impractical this compartmentalization becomes. Things become assigned to 'general' categories that allow people to access what they need to in order to accomplish their jobs without bothering another very busy individual.
Basically "we have too much government."
Of course, so do the Chinese.
Our government doesn't counter-hack the Chinese, necessarily, but we do have many various private intelligence firms and network security professionals who likely have. We just don't hear about it. The Chinese aren't quite as apt to announce that they were hacked.
Generally speaking, the response by our government has been... lacking.
The main problem is that most of the people in charge of making the decisions do not understand network security or computer networks to begin with. They look at porn in their office and then act all surprised with the network admin calls them on it. They have no idea what is important.
The biggest problem the U.S. has is "big data." Because the government is involved in virtually every transaction that occurs, there is a massive amount of information that the government generates and must protect. This means a large number of people necessary to administer the various hardware and software environments (humans are always the weakest link in any security system - and an unavoidable one - the more people involved, the more risks you are taking). It also means a lot of network traffic to monitor and manage access to.
Ideally, a district manager should only have access to information within his district, and only what information is necessary for him to do his job. He should only be able to extend his abilities with a request that is logged, justified, and observed by a second party.
Of course, the more information you have, the more impractical this compartmentalization becomes. Things become assigned to 'general' categories that allow people to access what they need to in order to accomplish their jobs without bothering another very busy individual.
Basically "we have too much government."
Of course, so do the Chinese.
Our government doesn't counter-hack the Chinese, necessarily, but we do have many various private intelligence firms and network security professionals who likely have. We just don't hear about it. The Chinese aren't quite as apt to announce that they were hacked.