And that's why you run your own e-mail server out of Chappaqua

[Zelig]

Thanks for the info. That type of attack did not exist when I was in. Although, I doubt that technique will be effective against classified military systems because the article says you have to be within 1 to 6 meters of the system for the attack to work. Even when I was in and this type of attack didn't exist, it was SOP to not allow any cellphones inside the facility where the classified computers were. So a potential hacker would have quite a bit of trouble getting an infected phone close enough for this air gap attack to work.

As for the assertion that any system can be hacked: Normally I would agree, but there has not been a single successful breach of any classified network belonging to the United States military. So it seems the methods used by the military obviously have hackers stymied.

There has not been a single successful breach of my home network.

 

[classical_hero]

Unlike you, the military would have been targeted numerous times.

 

[Commodore]

There has not been a single successful breach of my home network.

But your home network is not a target. Do you think foreign intelligence services have not made concerted efforts to breach our classified military networks? The fact that the military networks are targeted by just about every foreign intelligence service as well as just about every 'hacktivist' group out there and has never once been breached is pretty damn impressive. I'd say that's a pretty big cybersecurity win for the US government.

And how are you so sure your home network has never been breached? Just because nothing malicious has been done to your system doesn't mean your network hasn't been breached by someone just looking to piggyback onto your wireless network for internet access.

 

[Zelig]

Unlike you, the military would have been targeted numerous times.

But your home network is not a target. Do you think foreign intelligence services have not made concerted efforts to breach our classified military networks? The fact that the military networks are targeted by just about every foreign intelligence service as well as just about every 'hacktivist' group out there and has never once been breached is pretty damn impressive. I'd say that's a pretty big cybersecurity win for the US government.

Everyone's a target. I can trivially look at my server logs and see intrusion attempts.

And anyway, "concerted effort" combined with "impossible" is an oxymoron. By and large, there aren't any concerted efforts to achieve goals unless some people think they're possible.

And how are you so sure your home network has never been breached? Just because nothing malicious has been done to your system doesn't mean your network hasn't been breached by someone just looking to piggyback onto your wireless network for internet access.

How are you so sure no American "classified" network has been breached?



And really, the whole discussion is kind of dull anyway, and mostly boils down to a discussion on the definition of "hacking". My PoS Samsung smart TV has never been hacked because I don't have it connected to anything and it contains nothing of value, not because it's in any way secure. There have been veritable troves of information retrieved from various American "classified" networks by wikileaks/Manning/Chelsea. And the networks aren't really physically separate anyway, since they have to use undersea cables that everyone knows about, they're essentially just using best-practice security protocols available to anyone.

http://security.stackexchange.com/q...iprnet-physically-or-cryptographicaly-separat

My guess is that there's a fairly non-trivial chance that China is vacuuming up about as much information as the NSA, and even if the data is encrypted now, they'll eventually have comparable attack qualities as the NSA. The exponential nature of computing advances ensures that even if the NSA is literally an order of magnitude ahead of anyone else, from any point in time that only buys them a few years before everyone else catches up in capability, and at a much lower cost.

 

[Commodore]

There have been veritable troves of information retrieved from various American "classified" networks by wikileaks/Manning/Chelsea.

I had a feeling you or someone else would bring this up eventually. Sure WikiLeaks got information from our classified networks, but not because they were able to breach them with an outside hacking attempt. They got the information from people who were already cleared to access the network legitimately who decided to betray the trust placed in them. That does not qualify as a successful breach of the network in the context of the discussion we are having.

And I am certain there hasn't been a breach of the classified networks because if someone had breached the network, the people at WikiLeaks would have a lot more to publish on their site than they currently have. If a foreign power had breached the network, they would have information that could absolutely destroy the credibility of the US government and I don't think they would hesitate to use that leverage against the US.

 

[Zelig]

I had a feeling you or someone else would bring this up eventually. Sure WikiLeaks got information from our classified networks, but not because they were able to breach them with an outside hacking attempt. They got the information from people who were already cleared to access the network legitimately who decided to betray the trust placed in them. That does not qualify as a successful breach of the network in the context of the discussion we are having.

And I had a feeling you'd bring this up: "mostly boils down to a discussion on the definition of "hacking"". It's semantics either way, the overwhelming majority of corporate breaches of data involve social engineering and someone on the inside. When you hire penetration testers, they don't give up when they can't find any relevant 0-days.

And I am certain there hasn't been a breach of the classified networks because if someone had breached the network, the people at WikiLeaks would have a lot more to publish on their site than they currently have. If a foreign power had breached the network, they would have information that could absolutely destroy the credibility of the US government and I don't think they would hesitate to use that leverage against the US.

That's making a lot of assumptions that I don't see any reason to believe.

And the US government doesn't have much credibility to be destroyed anyway.

 

[Commodore]

And I had a feeling you'd bring this up: "mostly boils down to a discussion on the definition of "hacking"". It's semantics either way, the overwhelming majority of corporate breaches of data involve social engineering and someone on the inside. When you hire penetration testers, they don't give up when they can't find any relevant 0-days.

True. That's why the greatest cybersecurity threat actually doesn't come from outside hacking attacks, but from disgruntled insiders or outside infiltrators that gain direct access to the network or system they are trying to breach.

Anyway, the main point I was making in relation to the OP was that everyone is freaking out about Obama's emails on an unclassified system being hacked and that "freak out" is quite irrational considering the hackers didn't get anywhere close to compromising any systems or networks relating to national security.

 

[IglooDame]

And I am certain there hasn't been a breach of the classified networks because if someone had breached the network, the people at WikiLeaks would have a lot more to publish on their site than they currently have. If a foreign power had breached the network, they would have information that could absolutely destroy the credibility of the US government and I don't think they would hesitate to use that leverage against the US.

Aside from not answering my very reasonable question above - you are assuming motives of advanced persistent threats that may not be true. If a foreign power has hacked a US network that supports classified data, it may be in their best interest to preserve their methods and keep the data flowing rather than use existing data for political purposes.

And as a rule, one doesn't necessarily know that one has experienced a successful intrusion on one's network.

 

[Commodore]

Aside from not answering my very reasonable question above - you are assuming motives of advanced persistent threats that may not be true. If a foreign power has hacked a US network that supports classified data, it may be in their best interest to preserve their methods and keep the data flowing rather than use existing data for political purposes.

And as a rule, one doesn't necessarily know that one has experienced a successful intrusion on one's network.

Sorry about that, I honestly missed your question. Anyway, I honestly have no knowledge about how classified communication with our ships at sea works. I was not a communications specialist, I was an intelligence collector so I am only really familiar with how SIPR works.