Hackers this month attacked military computer systems in what the Defense Department's second-ranking official called "the most organized and systematic attack" ever against the Pentagon's networks.
Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre told reporters Wednesday that cyber attacks over the past two weeks penetrated some unclassified systems, but failed to break into any classified networks. Hamre said all systems are functioning normally, suggesting that the attacks may have been "a hacker's game." There was no evidence that the incidents were tied to the situation with Iraq, Hamre said.
The Justice Department has launched an investigation into the attacks, Hamre said.
"I think this was, more than anything, a serious wake-up call. We are a society and an economy that's increasingly dependent on computers, distributed systems," Hamre said. "You have to take this as being serious for the implication that it holds for the future."
The Pentagon has begun putting firewalls around unclassified systems to deter future security breaches. Classified systems are already protected by firewalls. Hamre said the Defense Department is forming a "computer forensics capability."
The President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection last October warned that the federal government's information security is weak and requires more funding. In May 1996, the General Accounting Office reported that Defense Department systems may have been attacked 250,000 times in 1995 and that 64 percent of those attacks may have been successful. GAO says information security is a governmentwide high-risk issue.
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