Iranians Seriously Hacked US Navy

[Harry-Potter]

Iranian hackers have seriously damaged the US Navy. Back in September 2013, the US Navy’s largest unclassified computer network was cracked by someone believed to be working for Iranian government or acting with its approval.

In September there were no other details revealed, but the whole affair looked like a simple hack to revenge all Stuxnet stuff that the United States and Israel did to the country’s nuclear plant. Today US officials claim that the network infiltration appeared to be far more extensive than previously admitted. Moreover, it lasted much longer.

Media reports confirm that it took the United States 4 months after initial news of the hack emerged in the end of September to purge the hackers from the network. The Iranian intruders hit the Navy Marine Corps intranet via some security vulnerability in one of the Navy’s public-facing sites. The US officials revealed that although the intruders made no headway into classified networks, they seemed to be everywhere in the network.

It is known that it took a coordinated plan to push the hackers out, and the government even had to hire cyberwarriors and contractors to do the job. Overall, the cost to repair the network, according to a senior defense official, was $10 million. In addition, the bill can rise when a few other invoices are paid.

According to the US Navy, their experts were surprised at the skills of the Iranian hackers, who had previously tended to use DDoS attacks to attack American government networks. Such attacks aren’t very difficult to stop. The only worrying thing is that while the intruders reportedly were unable to extract any truly valuable data from their infiltration, they could still do very much damage. In addition, the Iranians could train other hackers in their techniques.

[Saxsen]

Apparently according to one new source I was reading (I think it was Ars) this is not too surprising in that the net work was meant to be replaced in 2010 but it was put on life support until a new one is built by HP should be up in 2 years. The maintenance of the current computer network is being carried out by HP. Shows where US tax dollars are going.

 

here is the Link to the full article.

 

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/02/iranians-hacked-navy-network-for-4-months-not-a-surprise/