Now it is official: The most significant breach of U.S. military computers was caused by a flash drive inserted into a U.S. military laptop on a post in the Middle East in 2008.In an article to be published Wednesday discussing the Pentagon’s cyberstrategy, Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III says malicious code placed on the drive by a foreign intelligence agency uploaded itself onto a network run by the U.S. military’s Central Command.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/24/AR2010082406154.htmlAlso see:Secret US military computers ‘cyber attacked’ in 2008
A 2008 cyber attack launched from an infected flash drive in the Middle East penetrated secret US military computers, a Pentagon official says.The attack by a foreign spy service was the “most significant breach” ever of US military networks, Deputy Defence Secretary William Lynn said.Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, Mr Lynn described it as a “digital beachhead” to steal military secrets.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11088658Military Computer Attack Confirmed
A top Pentagon official has confirmed a previously classified incident that he describes as “the most significant breach of U.S. military computers ever,” a 2008 episode in which a foreign intelligence agent used a flash drive to infect computers, including those used by the Central Command in overseeing combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.Plugging the cigarette-lighter-sized flash drive into an American military laptop at a base in the Middle East amounted to “a digital beachhead, from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control,” according to William J. Lynn 3d, deputy secretary of defense, writing in the latest issue of the journal Foreign Affairs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/technology/26cyber.html