Breaking: Russia hacks Pentagon computers: NBC, citing sources

This story is developing now...

U.S. officials tell NBC News that Russia launched a "sophisticated cyberattack" against the Pentagon's Joint Staff unclassified email system, which has been shut down and taken off line for nearly two weeks. According to the officials, the "sophisticated cyber intrusion" occurred sometime around July 25 and affected some 4,000 military and civilian personnel work for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Sources tell NBC News that it appears the cyberattack relied on some kind of automated system that rapidly gathered massive amounts of data and within a minute distributed all the information to thousands of accounts on the Internet. The officials also report the suspected Russian hackers coordinated the sophisticated cyberassault via encrypted accounts on social media.

While the officials say its not clear whether the attack was sanctioned by the Russian government or conducted by individuals given the scope of the attack, "It was clearly the work of a state actor."
The officials stress that no classified information was seized or compromised and that only unclassified accounts and emails were hacked.

Almost immediately after the cyberattack was detected the Pentagon took the aggressive step of shutting down the entire Joint Staff unclassified email system and Internet during its investigation. The system should be back on line before the end of this week.

www.cnbc.com...|breakingnews

a reply to: IAMTAT
for a 2nd source (CNN) : link

The Joint Staff are the military and civilian personnel who serve the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on issues ranging from budgeting to military operations...
For more than 10 days, some 4,000 users on the Defense Department network have been without their email while military cyber experts have tried to scrub and rebuild the network. Spear phishing attacks are emails to employees that dupe them into giving up their network credentials.

Officials have said no classified networks were penetrated (but would they admit it if they were?)

Good find OP, thanks for sharing

lollll never thought that mr Putin could handle an computer aswell

btw... how many attacks does the pentagon do??

Cold War 2.0

Sounds like an excuse to keep Russia as the boogie man and another reason that there should not be encryption allowed without keys to the back door.

I'm sure that as this story develops, the damage revealed will be greater and greater than initially stated. That's how these things always go.

I would be willing to bet they are down playing this. I wonder what else they managed to get into?

Almost immediately after the cyberattack was detected the Pentagon took the aggressive step of shutting down the entire Joint Staff unclassified email system and Internet during its investigation.

How is shutting down the system an "aggressive step" , unless because it's the Pentagon everything they do is aggressive

China hacks America , Russia hacks America , America hacks Russia and China , they're all as bad as each other.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Snowden still over there? After hacking in he pushes the "that was easy" staples button on his desk....

originally posted by: gortex

Almost immediately after the cyberattack was detected the Pentagon took the aggressive step of shutting down the entire Joint Staff unclassified email system and Internet during its investigation.

How is shutting down the system an "aggressive step"

"YOU GO TO BED RIGHT NOW OR I WILL TURN OFF THE MODEM AND THERE'LL BE NO INTERNET FOR A WEEK".

That was my mother about ten years ago. 15yo me would have agreed that it was a very "aggressive step".

a reply to: IAMTAT

Interesting. An immediate relative of mine works down in the bowels of the Pentagon, and he was able to mention his email was offline a few days ago for going on 10 days. When I asked if it was a cyber attack, he was unable to answer (he has a higher clearance than I do), but now that this is open source I'm sure I'll be able to chat with him.

I'll see if there are any more details he can tell me (that are not classified) and get back on here to share with y'all.

Funny - when family members have TS / C clearance and you only have Secret, you learn what you're allowed to talk to each other about...

Can this sort of behaviour be considered an act of war?

I think in suburban life, if our wifi were to be hacked, by a neighbour, that would be declared an act of war.

Has the Obama White House commented yet?

With all his super security and all.

a reply to: xuenchen

Apparently they all have some huge meeting tomorrow to re-emphasize "being safe on the internet" etc.

Kind of depressing if you ask me, that the heart of our military can fall prey to simple spear-fishing hacking techniques...

a reply to: xuenchen

This is probably all part of Obama and Hillary's Russian Reboot...er...Restart.

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
Can this sort of behaviour be considered an act of war?

I think in suburban life, if our wifi were to be hacked, by a neighbour, that would be declared an act of war.

That would be Sarah Palin's house, not the Pentagon.

First the White House, and now the Pentagon .. LoL

'Accusing Russia is now a sport': Putin aide debunks CNN report on Russians hacking White House

link

It is a finger pointing game. How can they be absolutely sure it's "state-sponsored"?
And why would a state use computers initiating the attack from their home country? Are they really that daft?

If the Russian government was behind this then they are truly stupid and/or really wanting to start another Cold War or worse. I really hope it wasn't them and instead was just some kid sitting in his mom's basement having a little "fun".

I'm taking the information here with a grain of salt though, I don't trust anything anymore, not our own government much less Russia's. For all we know this was coordinated between the two to artificially raise tensions between the two countries.

a reply to: FamCore

No worries, hackers will never be able to hack the classified networks because they are their own network that's not connected to the UNCLAS network.

yep we are sold out..for the "higher "purpose... :-(
a reply to: rexsblues